


Jeevey's 25 Days of Christmas: A Britpop Advent Calendar

by Jeevey



Category: Inspiral Carpets (Band), Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (Band), Oasis (Band), The Smiths, The Verve
Genre: Advent Calendar, Babies, Buck Owens, Cousins, Domestic Fluff, Fashion Crimes, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, I do love being the very first to add a tag, Infidelity, Kittens, M/M, Nuns, Seduction, Spanking, Whipped Cream, dad Noel, dad liam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 21,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27836656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeevey/pseuds/Jeevey
Relationships: Clint Boon/Noel Gallagher, Johnny Marr/Andy Rourke, Liam Gallagher & Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher, Noel Gallagher/Johnny Marr, Noel Gallagher/Meg Mathews, Noel Gallagher/Paul Weller, Richard Ashcroft/Liam Gallagher (Oasis), Russell Brand/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 117
Kudos: 38
Collections: BritPop Advent Calendar 2020





	1. Chapter 1

“No she isn’t,” Noel says.

“She is. She’s gonna love it,” Liam repeats. They’re in St Mark’s Square, just down the street from Noel’s new house, looking at the Christmas trees stood in rows outside a log cabin on wheels. “It’s thoughtful, innit. Surprise her with a Christmas tree all decorated when she gets back. Make it special.”

“I’m not sure that’s the way it works with your first Christmas together,” Noel says. 

“It is. I asked Mam.” Liam lies without a blink. “She says to do it yerself so she can tell yer not a lazy cunt waiting for her to go make the Christmas roast.”

Noel grunts. “That’s what Louise used to say.”

“See?” Liam says. “Hey mister, give us one o’them fat ones on the end there.”

“No, I want a tall one. The tallest one, there in the back.” Noel points, and the man shuffles in the direction he indicates.

“What you want one o’them for?”

“I bought an ‘ouse with twelve foot ceilings, mate. Gonna do a Christmas tree, might as well do it up right.”

“A _fat_ tall one,” Liam calls to the tree man. “Don’t give us one o’yer skinny reject trees.” 

When the tree is all bundled up in its fishnet sleeve he pulls out a wad of cash and tosses it on the counter. “I don’t want it,” he says when the man tries to offer him change. “Put it in the charity box there.” 

Noel looks sharply at the cash. “You know that would have been Mam’s whole Christmas a couple of years ago.”

“I know,” Liam says, and stuffs it in the box. They both turn and look at the massive tree, lying on the street in its bundle. 

“Em. Fuck”

“Didn’t think of that, did you?” Noel taunts.

“Did too. Gonna carry it like...like fuckin’...that wussy kid that’s always crying about God, you know? God bless us every one? Fuckin’ Ebeneezer Scrooge.”

“It’s Tiny Tim, you twat.”

“That’s what I said. Come on, you get the fat end, I’ll get the fluffy one.”

“Will I fuck. Why aren’t you taking the heavy end?”

“Givin’ you the easier end, I am. Big end’s got more to hang on to. Fluffy end’s harder, ennit?”

“I’m taking the fluffy one or you’re carrying both,” Noel says. They stare hard for a few seconds, and then Liam’s face lights, and he re-settles the big fur hat on his head.

Liam walks down the street with the tree balanced carefully on the crown of his head, bracing it with one arm as he navigates the wet sidewalks. The fluffy end of the tree bumps freely, dipping down now and then to touch Noel’s upstretched hands. “This is stupid,” Noel says, jumping to catch hold of it. “It’s my own fucking tree. What are you doing carrying my Christmas tree.” Liam cackles, tipping his head to angle it just out of reach.

The tree comes into the house with a crash and lands on the floor like a beached whale, quivering lightly. They laugh, and then look at it in puzzled realization. “How do we make it stand up?” Noel asks.

“Needs one o’ them stand thingies. It’ll be in the closet upstairs, yeah?” Liam pauses. “What. What are you lookin’ at me like that for?”

“Houses don’t come with Christmas decorations,” Noel says.

“Don’t they?”

“This one didn’t.” 

Liam pauses for only a minute before deciding that this too was part of his plan. “Phone book’s in the kitchen drawer?”

“Of course.”

But a few minutes later Liam calls out, unable to find it. Noel goes into the kitchen and finds him dumbly opening and closing a drawer on the far left. “The drawer on the right, mate,” he says.

“Phone book goes in the drawer on the left,” Liam says, shocked. 

“Meg wanted it on the right.”

Liam shakes his head darkly. “Don’t approve of them kind of goings on,” he says, and looks up the number to Harrod’s. He gets on the phone with the special orders section and tells them he wants to have Christmas decorations delivered. There’s a pause as they ask what kind of decorations, and how many. Liam thinks.

“A tree-standing thingy. Lights, a fucking lot of lights, yeah. White ones, don’t give us any of them colored ones. Glass balls...got any with glitter on ‘em?”. 

Noel stands with one hand on the tequila bottle, watching. 

“Yeah, throw in some o’ them glitter ones too. And do you have any of them little knitted bastards that look like teddy bears and doves and that? Yeah, a lot of them. What color? Gold and red.”

“Silver and blue,” Noel says. “Meg likes silver.”

“I’m not buying any fucking silver ornaments. Christmas is gold,” Liam tells him. “Gold and blue,” he tells the Harrod’s operator. “How many?” He looks meditatively at the tree. “A fucking lot. That’s a big fucking tree.”

It’s close to midnight when the tree is up and decorated. Noel’s credit card is on the coffee table next to an empty bottle of tequila. The two of them are sprawled inconsiderately together on the couch. Liam is half on his side, his head resting on Noel’s chest. Noel shifts his arm this way and that before finding that it lies best olded across Liam’s chest. Burt Bacharach plays on the radio--not Christmas music, but the closest Noel would allow. They’ve forgotten to eat, but it doesn’t matter. Noel looks at the tree, breathing slowly. He looks down at Liam, who looks dreamily at the tree with lengthening blinks between each breath.

“Looks fantastic, don’t it,” Liam says sleepily. “Fucking top Christmas tree.”

“Mm.” Noel says. “Merry Christmas.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas cookies. An outtake of Little Bit of Spit and Polish.

Noel come in with a red and white striped scarf around his neck and a tin box printed with sleighs in his hand. Beads of rain cling to his jacket and shades, making him peer nearsightedly until he takes them off. Russell laughs outright at the sight of him.

“Oh, you look _cute_ ,” he says. “You look like Harry Potter with your hair all grown out.”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter,” Russell prompts. Noel just looks at him blankly. “Oh come on, Noel. Really?? you’re just making this up now. Magical kid with glasses and a scarf and like...is everywhere?”

Noel shrugs. “Missed it. Are you saying you like the scarf?”

“I’m saying you’re adorable, but not in a pervy way.”

“Hmph,” Noel says, and steps into his arms. Russell folds his arms around him, surprised, then leans against the worktop and lets Noel rest on him. “I can’t stay,” Noel says after a time, stirring.

“Can’t you?”

“No, I told Sara I was just dropping this off and I’d be back for tea. The littl’un’s been so colicky we’re taking turns getting out.”

“Mm,” Russell says, rubbing his face in Noel’s hair. “What’s she doing?” 

“Got her nails done this morning.”

“Maybe you should do that. Get your hair cut or something.”

“I don’t want me hair cut. And besides I had to bring your stuff over.” Noel sounds tired and a little petulant, muffled by Russell’s chest.

“Good, I like it this way. What’s in the tin, though?” Russell cranes to look at it without loosening his hold.

“It’s from my mam.”

Russell grows very still. “Your mum sent me a package?”

“Of course.” Noel rustles around until he can get the package in Russell’s hands. “Go on, open it.”

When Russell pries the lid off there’s a crackle of silver tissue paper and a rush of good smells. He pushes the paper aside and peers in. “Noel. Did your mother send me Christmas biscuits?”  
“She made you Christmas biscuits,” Noel corrects. Russell stares at the open tin, saying nothing. “See, there’s different kinds. Those ones are gingersnaps, and those ones are shortbread. Those are shortbread with some sort of weird stuff in ‘em, and these ones are jammy dodgers.”

“Your mum _makes_ jammy dodgers?”

“Of course, don’t yours?” Noel catches himself, but the words are already out. “Oh. Shit. I...I forgot. I’m not rubbing it in, right. I...forget it, put ‘em away.”

“No.” Russell’s eyes are huge and dark, and his mouth quivers at the corner. “It’s okay. I love them. I just...a real live mum, making biscuits and sending packages. I can’t even imagine.” Noel watches him. He takes a deep breath and clears his throat. “I’m ready. Let’s eat biscuits.”

“You have to have ‘em with tea,” Noel says, flipping on the kettle. I’ll do the tea, you go make sure the bed’s ready.”

“I thought you couldn’t stay?”

“Neither can I. But I’m getting so fucking imprinted on good sex that I’m overcome with a need to lie down the minute I come in here.” Russell hugs him and goes upstairs, clutching his tin.

A little while later Noel enters the white bedroom carrying two giant cups of tea. Russell is propped on an impressive pile of pillows, black-clad legs stretched luxuriously. Noel puts the tea on a nightstand while he slips out of his jeans and climbs in. When at least Noel is securely in bed and they’re wodged up tight together, he hands out the tea and they settle with the tin on their shared lap.

“Where do I start?”

“There.” Noel points at the jammy dodgers. “She does raspberry ones, and apricot, and blackcurrant. See, she’s got each one with it’s own biscuit cutter that gives a different shaped hole in the middle?”

“It’s amazing,” Russell says quietly.There’s a brief pause. 

“Come on, eat those cunts. Don’t look at ‘em all day. Tea, then biscuit, then tea.” Noel holds out an apricot one, watching him closely, and when Russell opens his mouth he pushes the whole thing in. Russell makes an exaggerated moan and turns it over, open mouthed and obscene, before getting distracted with real pleasure. 

“That’s really good,” he says, after a final cup of tea. He gazes at the open tin without taking another.

“What is it?”

Russell sighs and shifts. “You do know that I’m addicted to everything, right? Anything good in the world, give to me for two seconds and I’m addicted. Not just drugs and sex. Food, affection, approval, any of it.”

“What, like me? I’m a good thing.”

Russell says nothing, just scowls at the tin and eats another biscuit, then another. “Why does your mother send me Christmas things? Does she send ‘em to everybody?”

“No,” Noel says, eyeing him thoughtfully. “Only the special ones.”

Rusell’s hand falls still. “Does she know about us?”

“We haven’t spoken about it. But she could.”

“Does she know about you??”

“She’d be an idiot if she didn’t,” Noel says, “And she’s not an idiot. I was still living at home when I first met Clint, wasn’t I. Coming in all hours, reeking of sex and weed, covered in love bites…”

“Now I’m jealous,” Russell murmurs. “But…you think she knows about me?”

Noel rustles around in the bed until his knees are pushed up under Russell’s long legs. “Well, I’m on the radio with you every fucking week, calling in to talk about God knows what, just to talk.”

Russell looks at him. “Your mum listens to my show?”

“She does when I’m on.”

“She does?! How does she know?” Russells looks both alarmed and pleased.

“I tell her when I’m coming on, don’t I? Makes her day. She thinks you’re funny.”

Russell looks at him, his alarm and pleasure increasing so abruptly that his face goes nearly expressionless. “Can...can I talk with her?”

“Of course. Do y’want to talk with her right now?” Noel turns to drag his jeans off the floor. 

“No! No, I...I’m not ready.” Russell touches his hair and shirt as if she can see him. Noel watches him, a small smile forming. “I do. But... She can’t really know about us. Wouldn’t she hate me because of Sara? God, what if I were to talk to her and she just said something horrible?”

“Don’t people say horrible things to you all the time?” Noel asks.

“Not your mother,” Russell says emphatically. 

“Alright. We can wait. Whenever you’re ready.” Noel sets the teacups on the side table and gathers Russell into his arms. Russell lets himself be gathered, but keeps a tight hold on his tin. He looks like a small boy with a favorite toy, determined and wired and sleepy. Noel moves to brush a biscuit crumb from his cheek, but he jerks away. 

“Don’t, you’ll get crumbs all over my bed.” 

Noel looks down at the immaculate bed, white and grey-shadowed with Russell's long legs marking the middle, and smiles. Then he tips Russell’s head and kisses it away. 

“Mm.” Russell gradually relaxes, and his grip on the biscuit tin eases until it begins to slip. “Mm,” he says again. “How long did you say you can stay?”

“


	3. Shopping

There’s a commotion on Mayfair, which Damon assumes is for him. He ignores it as he’s gotten used to doing and concentrates on the display of diamonds in front of him. He’s here for a simple pair of studs, but the choices are overwhelming. He moves one little velvet pad to the center of the row, the another. The hubbub outside increases. The shopgirl wavers in her laserlike attention to him, and at last actually turns her head to the door. There’s a dozen men with dark coats and cameras, shouting. Then the door bursts open and Liam Gallagher comes tumbling in. 

Christ.

The shopgirls eyes widen and flick back and forth between the two of them. Damon grits his teeth. All he wants is to buy his girlfriend a pair of earrings for Christmas like a normal guy, or at least like a normal guy with loads of money. But no. Liam recovers from his stumble and swaggers once around the shop like he owns it, then comes to stand at the earring case, just at Damon’s elbow. Wouldn’t he just be the kind of dickhead who uses the urinal right next to you, rather than decently a few places down the line? 

He cranes to look at Damon’s selections, getting well up in his personal space. Damon closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“That for Justine?” Liam asks.

“Yeah,” Damon says. The girl watches them like a time bomb. He flushes at the ridiculousness of it. Does she think they're going to start a midday brawl in the middle of Graff? He makes up his mind in a hurry just to get out. “These are lovely,” he tells the girl, pointing to a large round pair. “I’ll take these ones.” Liam makes a rude sound. Fucking Christ. Damon turns to him and says, “Is there a problem?”

“Come on, mate. I know your bird’s a plain Jane but have a little style. Them ones.” He points to a pair similar in size, but shaped in a soft triangle. The stones have a distinct blue cast, and the prongs shine like stars at each corner. He’s right, damn him. She _would_ like them better. “The round ones,” Damon says firmly. “Wrapped, please.”

“I’ll have them ones, me,” Liam says. His finger goes effortlessly to a pair of giant hoops, pure dark gold and hammered into a faint crescent shape at the bottom. Damon wants to say they’re gaudy, but they’re not. They’re gorgeous.

“Would you like them wrapped, sir?” the shopgirl asks.

Liam laughs. “She’d throw out anything I wrapped before she ever got it open. Look like a bit of rubbish, it would.”

Damon watches carefully as she wraps Justine’s earrings. Wouldn’t that be just the worst, if Christmas morning came and it was the wrong earrings were in the box? She would never like anything like that. Would she? Damon looks back at the case, where the hoop display rests just next to the studs. There’s a slightly smaller set of the ones Liam just picked out that would look amazing on her. He looks at the girl wrapping his choice, and catches sight of Liam watching him in the mirror that lines the wall. He’s seen Damon’s doubt. His smirk broadens, and he lifts one eyebrow in an unmistakable leer.

Fuck him. Damon was tired of his chav convidence and his swagger, acting like he was in charge of everything. Damon met Liam’s eyes in the mirror. He dropped his chin and wet his lips--ignited the smolder that came like second nature now. He took one strong breath that made his chest rise sharply and leaned forward, pressing two hands into the counter--leaning toward Liam’s reflection. He lets his hands spread wide, pressing gently on the glass, lets the knuckles flex and rise, holds his intent stare. And the most extraordinary changes come over Liam’s face.

At first his leer cracks into laughter, but in a moment his eyes widen in surprise. His face softens, his look flicks down and back again, and then he meets Damon’s eyes with the most unguarded expression Damon has ever seen. His face is as soft as a child’s, bashful, eager, and sweet. Damon finds he can’t look away.

Someone is speaking to him. His attention leaves Liam in the mirror, confused, and he realized the shopgirl is holding out a beautifully wrapped package. His? Yes, there are Liam’s hoops still on the counter, thank god. He takes the bag from her, slides it into the cool grey bag she holds open. Liam is still watching him. 

Damon is hot. Why?? His hands are shaking. Liam is about to say something. He blinks, still with that terrible openness, and takes a breath. Damon can’t let himself hear whatever he’s about to say. “You have my credit card,” he tells the girl, and ducks out of the shop. In the last mirror just beside the door, just as the photographers see his face through the glass and erupt as they realize he and Liam have been in the shop together--just before he steps into the uproar, he catches sight of Liam’s face. It’s still held in that moment of discovery as he looks at Damon leave, marked with surprise and curiosity and dawning excitement, like the ripples of a penny dropped in lucid water, spreading.


	4. Wrapping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kinky little gift for quietwandering. It's a Smiths fic, so I hope all you Oasis readers can bear with me!

“No way,” Andy said.

“Come on...It’ll be fun,” Johnny coaxed.

“No _fucking_ way.”

“It’s just you and me, right? No one will ever see.”

“I...no.” Andy eyed the pile of stuff Johnny had set out. He couldn’t. 

Johnny’s eyes got even bigger, rimmed with black eyeliner the way he did even on ordinary days now. He leaned forward and put one hand on Andy’s knee. “Please,” he said.

That was all he really needed to say. Andy tried, but the fact was that he couldn’t refuse Johnny a single thing when he looked like that. He sighed and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re gonna have to do it, though.”

Johnny’s face lit with excitement. “It’s going to be brilliant! You’re going to look amazing.”

There was some fumbling with packages, and a little bit of redoing, and a lot of swearing. But in a few minutes Johnny stepped back and looked fixedly at what they had done. He looked...dizzy. Andy moved experimentally and then ventured a look down.

His body was encased in a tight layer of red kitchen wrap, the kind they only sell at the holidays. It extended from his nipples to the base of his ass, wrapped so tightly he could hardly breathe. He flushed with embarrassment at the sight of his front, his chest rising out of the top and the push of his thighs. He shifted, and started a little at the sticky constriction over his cock. What was he supposed to do? You couldn’t _do_ anything in this getup. But Johnny was still staring, motionless. Hardly breathing.

“You look... amazing,” he said. “I…” he trailed off. His hands twitched. “Come over...will you come over here?” He led Andy toward the long window.

“People will see,” Andy objected. “You said it was just you and me, you promised.”

“It is, I swear it is. I just...I want to see you.” Johnny stood him well back from the window, but where the light fell on him, watery and December-gray. Then he sat a little distance away on the edge of a kitchen chair piled with records.

“What do you want me to do?” Andy asked uncomfortably. 

“I know, this'll make you feel better. Hold on.” Johnny ran to the loo and came back with his own shaving kit-- a mirror on a stand, comb, razor and cream, and a few other things. “Just...pretend it's morning. Pretend you’re getting ready to go out. And… would you turn a bit?” He indicated that Andy should turns so that he was in full profile. Then he moved his chair so that he was a little closer to Andy’s ass. He never stopped going on about Andy’s ass, did Johnny. Andy sighed, glad at least to have something to occupy himself. He soon forgot himself in the soothing routines and the sound of Burt Jansch on Johnny’s stereo. 

After a time there was a sharp scrape on the floor--Johnny had moved his chair closer. So close Andy could feel the pressure of his breath, though not the touch of it, through his getup. Johnny’s feet were spread so that Andy stood between his knees. His hands moved hesitantly to Andy’s thighs. “Keep going,” he said hoarsely, nodding at the razor. 

Andy tried. But he’d seen the look in Johnny’s eyes and he understood now that his getup turned Johnny’s crank like nothing he’d ever seen. He let Johnny’s hands skim his thighs, the front then round the back. Then the sudden strange coolness of his hands over the plastic, brushing lightly, and a creak as Johnny rose. “Don’t stop,” he told Andy quietly.

Andy’s hands began to shake as Johnny kissed across the binding line on his back. Lifted his underarm and mouthed the tender skin there, holding Andy’s arm gently above his head. Worked his way around to the front and ran his mouth over Andy’s chest, bare above the plastic wrap. Andy swore as he nicked his face. 

“Now your hair,” Johnny whispered. Andy didn’t even need to fix his hair. But he took Johnny’s comb and pomade and gave himself a pompadour as big as Elvis, combing it over and over in the faint reflection of the rain-beaded window that showed Johnny making his way down Andy’s body.

By the time Johnny was knelt on the floor Andy’s cock was aching, prevented from rising by the binding wrap across his thighs and protruding indecently from the edge. Johnny bent down and tipped his head to catch the tip. Andy moaned out loud and pushed him closer. It was sticky. And hot. He couldn’t get free. Johnny had both sides of Andy’s ass gripped in his hands and his face shoved up under the edge, but Andy couldn’t get him close enough.

“Fuck. Johnny.” It came out like a tangled mess. Andy tried again. “I...how do I get out of this thing.”

Johnny pulled away, smiling, and pulled something from his pocket. A utility knife, the kind the roadies used for cutting gaffer tape after a show. He looked up at Andy, wordless and wicked, and snicked open the blade. Andy had doubts. Many of them. But Johnny was already moving back into place, his breath hot and wet under the sticky plastic. 

“Christ,” Andy said with difficulty. “You are a kinky motherfucker.”

“I know,” Johnny grinned, and went to work.


	5. Eggnog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December, 1994

There was a party in the next room, but Liam had wandered away from it. That was Noel’s thing, not his; the lights and the crowds and the shouting. Liam could enjoy it for a little while, but pretty soon his skin started to crawl from the noise and soon he’d be snorting double time just to cope. It was better just to find a drink and a quiet corner and a bird to snuggle until Noel was ready to go. Liam took a tumbler of tequila and went looking for a corner with a girl in it.

The party venue was enormous. There were three floors plus the basement, and every level was a different club. Each floor was a maze, with a huge open dance floor up front and hallways lined with private rooms in the back. Liam wandered through one hallway and another, following the quieter turnings until he came to a last dark doorway screened with beads. Inside it was furnished like an ordinary living room, empty under its black lights. Or no, not empty, Liam saw. It was Richard Ashcroft on the sofa in the back, watching Sky Sports with the sound turned off and some sort of Motown on the jukebox. 

Liam hesitated. Richard was only a year older but Liam felt that he was well grown up. His band had produced its first records years before Liam’s did, and they played better live. His clothes were more rock and roll than Liam's, and he wore them without effort. He was smarter, and spoke better to the press than Liam ever could, and he had hair that a girl in the dirty pictures would kill for. He caught sight of Liam now and raised his hand, inviting him over. He was a proper geezer, Richard. Liam went to join him, wondering if Richard really was as calm and confident as he looked or if, like Liam, he sometimes faked it.

The sofa was a narrow one. Richard squished to make room as Liam approached, and Liam threw himself into the space and spread out so that Richard would know he wasn’t nervous. He propped his arm along the back of the sofa like he always did and found that Richard had done the same. They fussed a bit and ended with Liam’s hand loosely curled at the center of Richard’s back, and Richard’s big hand across the cap of Liam’s shoulder. Richard squeezed him there and gave him a friendly rub. It was nice. He reckoned Richard was about as drunk as himself--pleasantly buzzed but not raging, and Liam relaxed, having found his quiet spot. They talked about football and fell quiet, dreamily, as Gladys Knight took over the jukebox with a song Liam didn’t recognize, rich with chimes and bells. 

“Did you ever see God?” Richard asked out of the quiet.

“Yeah,” Liam admitted. He saw God pretty often. Sometimes in mass when he was small, sometimes in the flashing lights onstage when the crowd really began kicking off. Sometimes in Noel’s face when it was just the two of them. Sometimes he thought he had an angel, a being who sat in every corner and, no matter what Liam was doing, looked at him with the most amazing love. “Do you have an angel?” he asked abruptly.

Richard didn’t give him a funny look. He just nodded as if he understood what Liam meant exactly. “Yeah, man,” he said. “Everyone does, you know. They just don’t want to see it, because they don’t want it to see them. They’re ashamed, do you know what I mean?” 

Liam did know. “Reckon your angel likes my angel?”

“My angel fucking loves your angel,” Richard said. Liam thought so too. He imagined their angels inclining their heads in greeting, nodding pleased and proud toward their respective charges, whenever they met. He imagined them having a game of snooker over in the corner there, watching quietly while he and Richard talked.

Liam drained his glass and looked around for something else. There was nothing in the room, and Richard silently offered him his own glass. Liam coughed in surprise when he tasted it. Richard was drinking eggnog, sweet and nutty and so laced with rum it was nearly transparent. Liam had forgotten it was nearly Christmas, and suddenly he made sense of the strings of lights on the walls, and the bells and chimes on the jukebox. 

“My nan used to drink that when I was a kid,” Liam said. 

“Mine too. Makes me think of how it used to be.”

“Simpler, weren’t it?”

“Yeah. But colder, too.”

Liam wriggles deeper into the cushions and wraps his hand around Richard’s knee, which has crept up crosswise on the sofa. He’s a bit like the girl Liam was looking for and also a bit like Noel in his best moods, when he was calm and happy and rested his hand along Liam’s back while they watched telly. When Liam could tell that everything was going to be okay. Richard was good to cuddle despite his skinniness; he smelled like bay rum and had a warm elastic feeling that made Liam tug him a little closer. He wondered if their angels also liked to snuggle. He imagined them forgetting their snooker game to perch on the table, knees touching, watching them with quiet pride.

“Did you ever kiss a fella?” Richard asked.

Liam felt no surprise, but puzzled about how to answer. He’d kissed one fella quite a lot, but no others. He wasn’t sure though if being a fella really mattered when the most important thing was that it was your brother. Still, kissing was kissing. “Loads,” he said at last.

Richard nodded. His hand moved to Liam’s back. Liam wondered where Noel was, and how he would feel if he could see him now like Liam’s angel could, cuddled up in a private room with a man. Girls were alright, Liam knew. He had a million of those, but Noel knew that he was Liam’s only man. They’d never talked about it. Liam decided it would do him good, probably. Maybe make his eyes glow with that possessive anger that Liam had seen only once or twice. 

Liam ran his thumb up over Richard’s shoulder, onto the back of his neck. Richard had skin like velvet, and his lashes were the longest Liam had ever seen. Liam reckoned he was still the better looking one, but Richard’s half-alien beauty made him want to him so close up his eyes would cross. He tightened his fingers on Richard’s back, and at last Richard turned and kissed him. 

He tasted like cigarettes, like brown sugar and nutmeg and bay rum. He was bigger than anyone Liam had ever kissed before, and his body felt solid when Liam drew him near. And the sound he made. Fuck.

“That’s nice,” Richard murmured as they backed away. He looked at Liam meditatively, and took another sip of his drink. “You really get it, don’t you.”

Liam wasn’t sure what he was talking about. All of it, probably. “Yeah,” he said. He was proper buzzing now, lit by the kiss and warm with chimes and lights. Richard’s face was flushed from their kiss, and his hair a little tumbled. His nipples stood out dark and tight through his t-shirt. Liam was having some of that. There was a drop of eggnog standing on Richard’s lip, round and white as a bead. Liam leaned forward and kissed it.

Richard’s mouth was as soft as any girl, but his kiss was firm and strong. His lips were almost unbelievably full. Liam sucked and bit at them without thinking, fucking juicy and gorgeous, then stopped in doubt. Noel didn’t like to be bit. But Richard just bent closer. He sucked Liam’s lip and bit it once, then again. Over in the corner the angels were deep in conversation. Richard bit him once more, insistently. 

Game on.


	6. Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> London, 2002

Liam came to the Christmas party thrown by their management this year, thank Christ. Noel had threatened and wheedled to make him agree, nearly to no avail. 

“It’s not our business, is it,” Liam said stubbornly.

“It’s exactly our business,” Noel argued. “It _is_ in fact our business. They’re our employees.”

“Well then,” Liam said, as if that settled something. “We pay them all year, so what more do they need from us.”

“That’s not the way it works, and you’re the most selfish twat I’ve ever seen. Think. They all have ordinary lives and work their asses off all year to make our thing happen--the lady with the copy machine and the guy driving the lorries. The least we can do is show up for two hours once a year to have a drink and make them feel like they’ve done something to be proud of.”

In the end Noel just waited in the cab outside their door until Liam came out. When he finally appeared Noel was impressed despite himself. He was sober with decent clobber on, and had brought not only Nic in a good black dress but the baby as well. Their manager Marcus and Donna who ran the office would be over the moon.

Somebody in the office had made a cheeky Christmas playlist, and even though Noel hated Christmas music with his whole heart he had to admit that they’d done a good job of it. Brenda Lee, Tom Jones, The Commodores, Take That; it was a master list of every cheesy Christmas earworm ever made, and the staff loved it. Everyone was there with their spouses and extra friends, even down to the guy that delivered for the vending machines. 

“Who made the playlist?” he asked Donna when he found himself near her for a moment. Donna was just a little younger than his mother, and had run their office with iron efficiency since Marcus brought her on to counteract the endemic wildness at the heart of the company. Her face was flushed tonight, and the bosom of her blazer sat a little askew. 

“It was me!” she shrieked. “Do you really like it??”

He choked in surprise. “Oh yeah,” he assured her. “It’s brilliant. People are mad for it. Look at them out there dancing. ” 

She looked as if seeing it for the first time, and shrieked again. “They do!!” She cried. “Oh my god, I’m so happy. Did you get some punch yet? Go get some punch!!” Noel didn’t like Christmas punch and he’d already been going hard at the rum and coke, but whatever. He was here to please. For all he knew she made the punch and grew the fucking lemons herself. He made his way over to the punch bowl and ran smash up against his brother.

It wasn’t Liam’s first time in the punch bowl, judging by the flush on his face. He loved Christmas punch, of course, sticky sweet and loaded with booze. He had Gene in his arms and, despite needing a third hand to manage the boy, he looked fit to burst with happiness. 

“Great party,” he told Noel breathlessly.

“Em, yeah.” 

“Great tunes,” Liam enthused. Clearly he’d recovered from their end of tour fatigue. This last one was happy but intense as a four month long honeymoon, and they’d both needed a little space to breathe by the end. That was long gone now though; Noel felt thirsty just looking at him.

“The tunes are top. You should tell Donna you like it. She’d be so happy she’d cream her nylons.”

Liam leered and leaned close. “Rather make you cream yours,” he said in the voice that he pretended to believe was a whisper. “You look fit as fuck.” There was an insistent drumbeat growing on the stereo, all Phil Spector sound and bells, and Darlene Love burst into her orgasmic full-throat roar.

Noel blushed, sudden and painfully. “Do you need any help with that?” he asked pointedly, indicating Gene's wild grabbing. 

Liam shifted the baby and leaned in again. “Fucking miss you. Ain’t this place got a cupboard or something? I got a big one just looking at you.”

“We’re...we’re not on fucking tour anymore. Mind your mouth.”

Liam’s breath was right in his ear now. “You mind my mouth. Do it the way you do, right? Come on, mind my mouth, Noely.”

There was a long shriek from the corner. “Yes, oh my god!! This is perfect. Look up, you have to do it!!” Donna had a margarita glass the size of her head and was using it to point to the ceiling. Bloody fucking Christ. Someone had fixed a kissing ball just over the punch bowl. The entire room roared. Lorry men, copy ladies, wives and babies and Marcus and fucking Nic, cheering. “Kiss him!!” Donna cried, and they took it up like a chant. 

Noel pointed to the baby. _You want me to kiss him?_ he mimed, since nothing could be heard above the din. 

“NO!!” They all roared. “Kiss him! Kiss him!” They chanted. Gene startled at the noise and wriggled out of Liam’s arms to find his mother.

_What, him?”_

“Yeah!!” they shouted above the chant. 

Sometimes his comic instinct just took over. _A little one?_ he asked them.

“No!!” they bellowed. 

_A very little one._

“NO!!”

_A big one?_

“Yeah!! KISS HIM. KISS HIM. KISS HIM. ”

 _Oh! A really BIG one_ he mimed, as if he only just got the idea.

“YEAH!!”

There was nothing for it. Darlene Love was going to roar in his head until the end of time, baby please come home. Liam was whispering dirty things in his ear, taking him by the hand as if they were about to slow dance together. A hundred people whose salaries he paid were waiting for him to kiss his brother in public, the one thing he swore he’d never do, and did, and swore he'd never do again. Noel did the only thing he could. He pulled his brother down by the hair and bent him backwards just like fucking Clark Gable with Vivian Leigh on the telly when he was a kid, and kissed him long and hard and hungry enough to satisfy any of them--to satisfy Liam himself, who came up round-eyed and speechless with joy.

“Wooooooooooo!!” cried Donna. The whole place erupted in screaming and applause. Noel stood motionless, stunned, the taste of Liam deep in his mouth and approval loud in his ears. He couldn’t think what to do. Liam was so excited that he turned a fucking cartwheel right in the middle of the dance floor. Noel got himself a punch glass-- and that was all that he remembered of the evening.


	7. Under the tree lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one out of order but it's okay, right?

Liam hates being locked out of his room. He especially hates it when Noel locks him out because he’s trying to score with his girlfriend. Liam needs to be in there. It’s where his stuff is, his music, his bed. Noel can’t just lock him out.

Noel can’t really lock him out; it’s a theoretical lock, of course. Their mam let them have a lock for about ten minutes when Noel was eleven, and immediately tore it out again when she realized they were just going to break each other's fingers slamming the door. The principle holds, though. Noel wants Liam out, and Liam wants in.

It isn’t fair. It’s Christmas eve. Mam’s working late and Liam’s got to wrap her present before she comes home, and of course it’s under the bed where he keeps all his special things. Liam figures he can get in and out before Noel even notices he’s there.

So he just walks in, minding his own business. It takes Noel about half a second to notice that he’s there. They've still got their jeans on, but he’s got Diane’s top rucked up and her nipple showing tight between his fingers. It’s fucking hot. Liam gets to see just a flash of his brother pushing down on her open hips before he looks up. 

“What the _fuck_ Liam!” he shouts. He pings an empty tea cup at Liam’s head.

Liam bats it away. “Just getting some stuff, I’ll be right out,” he assures them. It only takes a second to grope under the bed and he leaves them alone. But out in the hallway he finds that he only got half of it. Mam’s got a hat and gloves both, and he only got the hat. He goes back in. They’re kissing again but break off as soon as he comes in. Noel yells at him again, and Liam hastily grapples around in the dust to find the rest of mam’s present. He shuts the door but instantly realizes he doesn’t know where the wrapping things are.

“Noel, do you know where the tape--” 

This time Noel’s aim is well good, and Liam slams the door just in time to hear a mug explode against the door instead of his head. He goes downstairs to wait. He puts on Johnny Mathis’s Home for Christmas on loud just in case they decide to fuck instead of fighting.

It’s only a minute before Diane comes down, wiping her makeup with a tissue and telling Noel that she’s sick and tired of him having no money, no ambition, no way to go out and do anything nice, no space from his family. She slams the door in Noel’s face, leaving him standing looking after her like all the stuffing’s been taken right out of him. Liam goes to put on the kettle, trying to look innocent as possible. 

Noel doesn’t even look angry. Just lost and sad. Liam makes the tea and puts two sticky buns on a plate. Mam gets them leftover from her bakery job on the weekends, and they’re the most exciting food Noel and Liam ever have in their house, other than Sunday roast. He turns on the tree lights and throws the sofa pillows down on the floor and waits. Pretty soon Noel comes and sits down, saying nothing. He must be feeling well bad, Liam thinks. He doesn’t even complain about Johnny Mathis. Liam lays down with the teacup balanced on his stomach and waits.

“What do you want for Christmas?” he asks, to stop Noes’s face looking so sad.

“It’s too late, knobhead,” Noel says. “The shops are all closed.”

“If you could have anything, though.”

“A gorgeous girlfriend who thinks I’m fit and brilliant,” Noel says without hesitation.

“Yeah?”

“All the money to take her out and buy her nice things.”

Liam considers.

“And my own fucking room,” Noel says. 

“And a working cock?”

“Shut up.” The corners of Noel’s mouth turn down. “My cock works fine. It’s just...no one could get it up in the bed you slept as a ten year old. With your mum downstairs, and with people barging right in every minute.”

Liam doesn’t know what to say, because it seems like he can. He can get it up just about anytime, anywhere, including when people are in the room. For instance now. He loves getting off when he knows Noel is still awake. The best is when Noel wakes him up coming in late and he can’t go to sleep again, but he waits until Noel thinks that Liam thinks he is asleep, then starts to beat off slowly. It drives him mad, knowing that Noel is listening. 

Noel won’t eat his sticky bun. He sets it aside and lays down on Liam’s pillow. Liam puts an arm under his head. Sometimes Noel let him do that, on the nicest days. He lets him do it now.

“You’ll have all those things,” he says. “I’ll get ‘em for you.”

“Sure you will.”

“I will,” Liam insists. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. You want a car? A nice fucking Bentley?”

“A Porche,” Noel says.

“Done. Do y’want a guitar?”

“Yeah, man. Fucking Gibson, cherry red.”

Liam grinned. “What about a house? You want a house?”

Noel began to smile. “Eight bedrooms in Buckinghamshire. With a gardener, and a fucking cook.”

“I can do the cook,” Liam says. “Don’t know where I’ll find a fucking gardener.”

Noel chuckled, simple and happy, and rubbed his face on Liam’s shoulder. Liam clasps his arms around him. Noel lets him do it. Liam looks up at the tree lights in pure happiness. This is it, really. Noel in his arms, laughing, his hair the color of treacle syrup in the yellow lights. This is all Liam wants for Christmas.


	8. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1992

The walls of Johnny’s studio were hung top to bottom with guitars. Noel had seen a few nice studios in his time with the Inspirals but he couldn’t believe the amount of money hung on those walls. He couldn’t believe any of it, really. Not the moment when the guy Ian that he knew from around town mentioned that his brother Johnny was Johny _Marr,_ or when Johnny actually rang him up later that very same day to rave about how much he loved the demo Ian gave him.

He couldn’t believe it when Johnny asked Noel on the phone what his favorite guitar shop was, and then asked Noel to take him there next day, nor how Johnny came to pick him up and chatted like they’d known each other forever. Not when Johnny bought three guitars and then said “Come on, let’s try these out at my house, I’ve got a studio built in the garden!” He couldn’t believe Johnny’s open way of talking, and how he kept stealing glances at Noel like a teenage boy with a crush. He especially couldn’t believe how Johnny’s hand fell on Noel’s knee while they were driving, leaving Noel staring at Johnny’s broad hand and thinking _fucking hell._ as the lights of town flicked by.

The rain had turned to sleet by the time they reached Johnny’s house, a big posh place way out of the city. The house was massive. It was lit up at every window, but Johnny didn’t take him in there. He led him to a sort of hut thing, where after a little entryway they found a wood-paneled room lined with guitars. Noel stared openly. There wasn’t even a place to hold the three new ones he’d just bought. What it was like to be able to get whatever you wanted? 

They played for hours, first with Noel in the one good chair and Johnny one of the amps that crowded the floor. Then later, after hours of drinking, they played on the daybed shoved up under a window opposite the sound board. Noel stretched out, dizzy with happiness, and watched Johnny play. The ice pinged on the steel roof, quiet and mesmerizing.

Noel began to feel dreamy, mesmerized by the ice on the roof and the ripples of Johnny’s guitar. “I should go,” he said.

Johnny shook his head. “Nah. Listen to that outside,” he said. “No one’s going anywhere. We’ll stay here.” We? Noel thought. You live on the other side of the garden

“Don’t your wife want you back in the house?” Noel asked. Johnny just smiled, gently, and said nothing, and his beautiful fingers moved over the neck of his guitar. Then he set it aside and wriggled down until he lay next to Noel close but not touching. 

“I really like you, Noel,” he said. “I’m glad we met.” He looked at him so openly. Noel had never seen anything like it. He was so fucking... honest, really. And _nice._

Johnny tucked one arm under his head. “I want to sleep here with you.”

Noel almost choked. Johnny didn’t move or touch him in any way, or...or even ask, really. Just said what he wanted, pure as anything. _I want to sleep here with you._ Noel looked at him, at the huge dark eyes and slim body like a kid. At the broad hands that looked like they belonged to a bigger man. At the two big decorative rings on his right and a plain gold band on the left.

Noel wasn’t an innocent anymore. He knew about what happened on the road. About men. But he’d never gone with anyone that he knew was married before. He always thought that he wouldn’t, somehow. That at some point he’d settle down, get married, and stop shagging everything that moved. That he’d be devoted and decent and make his wife happy. 

He wanted to ask Johnny about his wife, about the lights on the second floor he’d seen when they came in. He couldn’t. His mouth was sealed shut, sticky with nerves and desire. Johnny’s eyelashes were as thick as snowflakes in a storybook, and his eyes glowed like candles. Noel tried to say something and ended up in a wordless, whole body shrug like a little kid. Johnny mirrored it. Then he reached out and ran one finger down the back of Noel’s hand.

“Yeah,” Noel said, thickly.

Happiness broke over Johnny’s face like a wave. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Noel repeated. He touched Johnny’s hand the way Johnny had touched his, one finger sliding down his beautiful fingers. It was so quiet here, so far out from town. There wasn’t a single sound of traffic, not anywhere. There was just the quiet hum of the radiator, the surging sleet on the rooftop, and the sound of Johnny’s lips as they opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noel says he met Johnny in May of 1993, just one day before the Glasgow gig where he met Alan McGee. I've moved the event to the previous winter.


	9. Kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2005

Noel didn’t care what anyone said, Chicago was a shit town. He’d hated it from the minute he got off the bus in 1989 and he hated it now. You had go through Gary, Indiana to get there, and that should tell you a fucking lot. It was clearly an accidental convergence of railroads, coal yards, and slaughterhouses, which was fine, but it insisted on pretending to be something else, and the suburbs went on for a hundred miles in every direction around it. Fucking American city. A billion degrees in summer, cold as hell in winter, and the wind from the lake would take the skin right off your face.

Noel pulled up his collar around his chin now, wishing he had a decent hat for once. Gem had one, the knob, a knitted navy cap that actually made him look cooler somehow rather than less. They’d gone to a bar down the street from the hotel and now that he was thoroughly pissed he wondered if he could make it back. He could see the damn thing, but with the wind in their faces it might as well be the moon. Worse, he’d eaten something that was a fucking mistake. Gem shivered and spat onto the sidewalk, and something about it turned Noel’s stomach so abruptly that he veered off into an alley and heaved.

It tasted like tequila, beer, tacos, and oysters. Noel swore he’d never have any of those things again as the smell of his puke just made him puke more. Gem was behind him, patting his back. Good man. It was out of the wind here at least. Noel wiped his mouth and tried to get himself together. There was a rustle among the bins and dirty paper around his feet. A rat, probably. It made a pitiful squeak. Fucking shit town, where even the rats froze their tits off. Noel kicked aside the paper. 

It was a kitten. Soft grey, rolled up in a ball no bigger than his fist, with batlike ears sticking out and the most miserable, squinched up little face. “Fucking hell,” Gem murmured. Noel picked it up. The thing was practically dead, but when he touched it made a pathetic babylike cry, and its naked toes stretched as it dangled in the air. He curled it into the palm of his hand so that its feet were covered, and together they looked at it. 

“Poor little bastard,” Gem said. Noel covered it with his other hand, and suddenly it flattened its ears and bit him.

“Bastard indeed,” said Noel. “None o’ that now.” He tucked it into the top of his jacket and zipped it securely.

“You’re taking it back?” Gem asked in surprise.

“No, I’m gonna put it back in the street and let it freeze. Come on.”

In the morning Noel stayed in bed, watching the kitten gradually come to life. He’d asked for milk with his tea, and after he poured a few drops down its throat it turned out to be old enough to drink on its own. Its eyes, when they opened, were blue. It drank until its belly was stretched like a drum and fell asleep on the blanket. Noel watched in fascination. It reminded him of Anais when she was tiny, with its rapid breathing and racing heart. Maggie sat in her place in a hotel chair at the foot of Noel’s bed with her notebook, making their plan for the day. Liam sat on the bed in his robe, frowning.

“It’s probably got a disease,” he said.

“No it hasn’t.”

“Yes it does, why else would it be out on the street. Someone saw it was fucking diseased and tossed it.”

“No one tossed it, it was born out there,” Noel said.

“How do you fucking know?”

“How do _you_ fucking know.”

Gem appeared at the door, saw Liam in his robe, and wheeled out again.

“It’s okay, I’m in here too!” Maggie called. 

Gem came back in, sheepishly. His face lit at the sight of the kitten. “Made it through the night, did you?” he asked.

“This cat is going to live through the apocalypse,” Noel told him. Liam scowled. “She is. She’s brilliant, look at her,” Noel insisted. 

“What are you gonna do with it?” Gem asked.

“I’m gonna take her on the bus with us,” Noel said.

“Y’ can’t take a fucking kitten on the bus,” Liam objected. “How do you even know it’s a girl, anyway.”

“Because she took the world’s smallest piss on my pillow this morning. Maggie, can I take a kitten on the bus?”

“Yes,” Maggie replied promptly.

“Good girl. Maggie, I’m in love with you,” Noel told her.

Maggie smiled. “I know.”

“Fuck. Off,” Liam interrupted. “Kitten needs stuff, don’t it. Ain’t any stuff on a bus.”

“We can get all that,” Noel said. “Maggie, get it a little dish and a litter pan, right?”

Maggie made a note. “Dish, litter pan, litter. Got it.”

“It’s gonna need a pretty tiny litter pan. It’s only as big as a fucking bean.” Gem said doubtfully.

“Dish, litter, tart tin,” Maggie revised.

Liam looked increasingly unhappy. His brows drew together like a thundercloud, and his lower lip protruded like a sulky child. “What’s it gonna eat, then? Ain’t no food on a tour bus.”

Gem snorted and quickly smothered it. 

“Of course there’s fucking food on a bus,” Noel told him. “Don’t you eat on the bus? Maggie’s gonna get it some chicken livers when she goes out.”

“Chicken livers!” Liam exploded. “What’s wrong with fucking kibble?”

“You expect _my_ kitten to eat ordinary kibble?” Noel asked in disbelief. 

“Dish, litter, tart tin, chicken livers. Got it,” Maggie said.

“Maggie, love, I’ll get that baby on you anytime. Just name the day,” Noel said.

“Thanks, Chief.” Maggie gathered her papers and kissed first Noel, then Liam on the forehead. She looked meaningfully at Gem and nodded toward the door. “Gem, do you want to help me find the, em, the thing?”

Gem wrenched his attention from the kitten. “Right, yeah. Sorry. Uh, see you guys in a bit, I’ve got to…” He went out after Maggie. Liam remained motionless on the bed, still scowling.

There was silence. The kitten was awake now, stretching and rolling blissfully on the blankets between Noel’s knees. “How come don’t you like my kitten?” he asked after a time.

“I like the kitten. I fucking love kittens,” Liam said. His scowl grew blacker than ever.

“Uh huh,” Noel said. He moved it to the space between him and Liam. It stood, immediately fell, and began working to stand again. Liam’s face softened despite himself. “Why don’t you want to bring her with us, though?”

“One more thing for you to pay attention to, ain’t it,” Liam said. 

“What?” Noel didn’t understand. 

Liam shrugged inarticulately. “At home there’s the kids and the missus’ and the exes and all that. Out here it's just you and me, ain’t it.”

“You’re jealous.”

“No, I’m afraid. Or sad, or summat.”

“Mmhm.” Noel scooted closer, wriggled down in Liam’s shoulder, and placed the kitten on Liam’s chest. Then he buried his face in both. It had given itself a bath already, and it smelled soft and clean. Liam had not had his yet, though he had washed off the sweat of the show the night before. He smelled of armpits and cigarettes and bed. He could hear Liam smile, though he couldn’t see it.

The kitten locked its tiny claws in Liam’s robe and began to scale his chest. Noel nudged its little bottom up once or twice when it slipped, until it discovered the warm spot just under Liam’s jaw. Its little bum wriggled as it nosed vigorously around Liam’s skin. 

“Ah, Christ. She’s licking me. And she’s got nails, fuck.”

Noel could hear the click of her tiny tongue. “She wants to suck your tit,” he said.

“She fucking can’t. That’s your job, innit.”

“Yep.” Noel slid a hand in the front of Liam’s robe and found his chest. He rubbed the nipple lightly. The cat had begun to purr. 

Liam made a choking sound. “Fucking...stop.”

Noel made him wait another minute before taking the kitten away and placing it on the floor with a blanket. “Go on, jellybean,” he said, flicking its bum. “You’ll be fine for a bit. Dad’s busy.”


	10. Immaculate conception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1964

There was a holly tree growing by the door to the convent. Peggy touched its thick dark leaves. Hospitality, her mam used to say when she asked why they had a holly at the door. The holly gave shelter to the blessed mother when Herod’s soldiers were hunting to slaughter the Christ Child. It covered them with its thorns until the soldiers had gone, and so the Holy Family escaped to Egypt. We plant it by the door to show welcome, her mam said. Its bright berries were covered with frost, early in the morning as it was. Funny, Peggy thought. Who’s a bloody fucking virgin now? She ducked into St Therese’s Home for Mothers and shut the door, before it should grow fully light.

Peggy liked Sister Mary Albert right away. She reminded her of the milkman’s horse when she was a girl, with its world-weary tolerant strength that seemed as if nothing could startle it. She wore a white nurses uniform with her wimple, instead of a dark skirt and sweater like the other sisters. She sat Peggy down in her office, which looked exactly like an ordinary book-lined study except for the examining table and jars of cotton swabs and iodine on the table.

Peggy climbed up to perch on the examining table and placed her feet neatly on the silver stepstair. She’d been so proud to wear those shoes out dancing when she’d first come to Manchester, bought with her very first paycheck. They looked old now, and tired. She realized that Sister Mary Albert was looking at her patiently.

“I think I’m pregnant,” Peggy said. It was the first time she had said it out loud.

“Yes?” said the nun.

“But…” Peggy swallowed. “But I can’t. I can’t be.”

“Why is that?” Sister Mary Albert asked.

“Because I didn’t...I didn’t. I never did.”

“Never did what, child,” the nun said patiently.

“Never did the baby thing. I never…” her voice sank into insignificance. “I never fornicated.” The nun’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t!” Peggy exclaimed. “I swear. He wanted to, but I didn’t let him. And--and he stopped. And now…”

Sister Mary Albert didn’t look angry. Peggy was prepared for outrage, or horror, or perhaps even awe, but not the look of simple curiosity that the nun gave her. Under her eyes Peggy began to cry, shaken by having said it at last. Sister Mary handed her a clean handkerchief and waited.

“Now,” she said when Peggy was calm, “Let’s go back a bit. You think you’re pregnant. Have you missed your menses?”

“Two of them,” Peggy said miserably. 

“And you’ve never missed one before?”

“Never.”

“Ah. Well. You eat well enough?”

“I...I think so?”

“You’ve color and weight enough, so probably. How’s your appetite?”

“Terrible. Nothing tastes good.”

“Hm. You’ve got good energy?”

“No, I fall asleep in me supper every night,” Peggy said.

“You sound pregnant,” the nun said wryly. “Now tell me about this time when he stopped. You didn’t fornicate, but you got close, didn’t you?”

Peggy flushed. “I...I guess so. He had me skirt up, and I saw his willy.”

“Wrestling in the backseat of a car, was it?” A truck, really, but Peggy nodded.

“But… this don’t make any sense,” she said. “I’m not pregnant. How can I be?”

“Oh, it’s easy enough. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s possible for certain,” Sister Mary Albert said. “Look here.” She pulled out a steel tray and set it on her desk, and poured a little water from a glass. It made a round little pool which she smeared with her finger. “This is you. It’s damp inside your Mrs Jones, sometimes more than others, isn’t it?”

Peggy gaped. She hadn’t supposed a nun _had_ a Mrs Jones, let alone a word for it. Sister Mary Albert looked as though she wanted to say something, and didn’t. She simply rolled her eyes a bit and went on. 

“Sometimes it's sticky like the mucilage you used in school, and sometimes its slippery like a trout, aye?” Peggy nodded. “And it doesn’t stay inside always. Sometimes you might feel damp in your knickers all day, and if your man’s done right by you, you might end up sitting in a pool of your own wet, right?” Peggy burned with embarrassment, and said nothing. 

“So that’s you. And here’s him.” Sister Mary Albert took a dropper of iodine and placed a fat droplet near the water. “You’ll have seen the wetness he has, then,” she said dryly. “The man’s seed are really wee beasties that swim in it, did you know?” Peggy shook her head. 

“Aye, and they can swim in the thinnest skim of moisture, too. So…” Sister Mary Albert drew the two drops together, until the iodine burst through the edge of the water and flooded it with color. “If he goes off, even outside you, and any of his seed touches where you happen to be all loved up and wet already, why, nothing prevents it from swimming as far as it needs to go. Dreadful determined, are sperms.”

Peggy sighed. “I should have just gone ahead and let him do it, if I was gonna get bloody pregnant anyway.”

“Most people do,” the nun said mildly.

There were several seconds of silence. “How do you feel about your fella?” Sister Mary Albert asked. “He _is_ your fella, isn’t he?”

“Of course,” Peggy said testily. “I’m no a whore to lift me skirt for anyone. He...Well, he’s Tommy. Good looking. Charming as the day is long, but wild. Lazy. And...I don’t know.” 

“Will he marry you?”

Peggy thought. “He’s been asking. Wants to get all the way in me knickers, I suppose. But...do I have to?” 

“Do you not want to be married?” said Sister Mary Albert, surprised.

“Yes. No. I don’t know...I do. I don’t want to be a nun, savin’ your presence. I want me own babies, at least. But Tommy…he frightens me. I don’t know, he’s just got a look sometimes, and it sends me shivers.”

Sister Mary Albert nodded. “You don’t have the look of a nun. You don’t do too well in the obedience category, do you?”

Peggy grinned. “Nay, I never did at that.”

“Well. You could stay here until your time comes, or someplace like it. But you couldn’t keep your baby.”

“Could I no?” Peggy said longingly. At home she knew she couldn’t of course, but she’d hoped that perhaps here in England it might be different.

“Child, how would you support it? You couldn’t work with an infant, and who would pay to keep you both until it was old enough for school? You’d carry it for nine months, and then you’d both end up in the workhouse. Or take it back to shame your family, and ask you mam to support you both.”

Not in a hundred years would Peggy bring home another mouth for her mother to feed. “Tommy it is, then,” she sighed. “I suppose I should just go on and do the dirty with him. No sense in waiting any more.”

“Well, it is a mortal sin,” the nun allowed. She took out a card. “I want you to go see my friend George at Longsight Medical Center. He’s a fine physician, though young, and he’ll do right by your babe. Go every month and do what he says, mind, and I hope God will see you a good husband and a fine healthy baby.”

But He didn’t. Peggy and Tommy were married in the church the day after Epiphany. On the night before her wedding Tommy strangled her pet canary. He crushed it in his hand because it couldn’t stop singing for all the excitement in the house. She smothered her mouth with desperate sobs, thinking, she mustn’t cry. Tommy watched her with narrow eyes as he squeezed its life out, and something told her that he mustn’t ever see her cry.

She married him the next day, knowing there was nothing else to do. She had a little one to think of. And by the time her blood burst out on St Brigid’s day, it was far, far, far too late.


	11. Ugly Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1998

Liam slams the door. “Noel? Noel! I need you, where’re you at?” He pokes around the house, opening every door and sticking his head in every cupboard. “Looks nice in here. Noel, you having company? Jesus, he even took out the bottles. Noel?”

“Fucking christ, Liam, I’m in ‘ere!” Noel calls. “You’re gonna have the cops on us and it's only half nine in the morning!”

Liam follows the sound of his voice to the master bath, and stops short. “You look nice,” he says. 

“I’d better,” Noel says sourly. He’s got a fresh haircut and he’s just perfecting his shave. He leans over the sink, already in his nice trousers and loafers, but nothing but an undershirt on top.

“You having company?” Liam repeats. 

“Meg’s parents are coming in for dinner. Don’t touch anything.”

“Whyn’t you got your top on?”

“No reason,” Noel says evasively. “Just keeping things clean.”

Liam sits on the bed and watches him shave. “What things?” he asks.

“Nothing. Why are you here, anyway?”

Liam falls silent, and Noel continues examining his neck in the mirror. “It’s not nothing,” Liam says after a minute.

“What?”

“You said keeping things clean. It’s not no things. Can’t be, can it?”

Noel rolls his eyes. “You’re cooked, you are. Have you been to bed yet?”

“Nope. Needed help, didn’t I.”

Noel turns to really look at him for the first time. “Holy shit. You’re filthy. Get off the bed, Meg’s gonna have a fit.”

Liam doesn’t hear him. He’s staring fixedly at the garment spread waiting on the bed beside him. “Is that what you’re keepin’ clean?” he asks.

“Fuck off,” Noel says, reddening.

Liam begins to laugh. “Did she pick it out for you?”

“No.”

“She did!”

“I picked it out. Now fuck off.”

“Sure you did.” Liam is liquid with laughter. “Put it on. Give us a show!”

“No.”

“I dare you. Come on.”

“Fucking--”

“You’ve got to get it on for the in-laws anyway, ain’t you. Bite the bullet, Noely.” 

Noel puts on the jumper, grumbling. His head gets stuck and then pops through like a toddler. Liam takes one look and doubles over, howling. The jumper is black, with a white circular yoke that extends over his shoulders. Around the base of yoke are a ring of jaunty Christmas trees. Above them gallops a parade of saucy red reindeer. Each one cups a star in its antlers, which form a chain around the base of Noel’s neck. He looks like an eight year old who’s been stuffed in a funnel of Christmas cheer. 

“Oh my god, I can’t breathe,” Liam says. “Are you going out like that?”

“Of course I’m not going out--” Noel hisses. At that moment Meg walks in. She’s just in from walking the dog, with fresh color in her cheeks and a white ski sweater with her stack-heeled boots. She looks like a million bucks.

“Oooo, you look so handsome!!” she cries, and scoots over to give Noel a hug. Over her shoulder, Noel glares daggers and makes a signal for silence. “You’re going to look so nice when we walk down for dessert!” she continues. Noel makes a faint sound.

“Dessert, is it?” he says. “I thought we were, em, having dinner in?”

“Dinner, yes. Cook’s got it all ready. But Mum begged me to take them to La Guafrerie, it just opened, you know? It’ll be perfect to get some air and walk off a heavy dinner!”

Liam is writhing on the bed. “I was gonna ask you to take a photo. This is so much better,” he gasps.

Meg looks at her husband accusingly. “I thought we talked about not having him in here,” she says in an undervoice.

“I didn’t let him in, he just came,” Noel whispers back.

“And yet here he sits. On our bed. Noel, this is our room. Your brother doesn’t live here! And even if he did, we’d get him his own room--”

“I’m not giving my brother a fucking room in my own house--”

“Well, I’m not suggesting that we do! I’m just saying that _our room_ is no place--”

“Meg, you can’t imagine how much I agree, I just--I’ll get him out. Liam, you can’t--Oh Christ, he’s passed out.”

Meg gasps in horror. Liam is sprawled facedown on their bed, one muddy shoe tucked up on the duvet.

_“Fuck.”_

“Mind your language, you can’t talk like that around my mum!”

“I...Christ. What do we do?”

“How long is he going to sleep like that before he wakes up?” Meg eyes the still form suspiciously.

Noel thinks. “Three hours, maybe four?”

“Not long enough. We can’t have him falling downstairs in the middle of Yahtzee. We need to get him out, Noel.”

“Alright. You call a cab, I’ll let Nic know he’s on the way home.”

“Oh god, they’re going to be here in ten minutes! Your brother--”

“I’ll get it, I promise. Fucking--” Noel’s eye falls on Liam. The dog has leapt up on the bed and is busily licking at the giant wad of chewing gum that Liam has come to get Noel to cut out of his hair. “Bloody balls of Jesus. Okay. I’ll get him out, you just--” He begins to remove his jumper.

“What are you doing?” Meg interrupts. “I want mum to see you looking so well!”

“Just keeping it clean,” he assures her, and pulls it off over his head.


	12. Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1989

They were wandering around the 10th arrondissement when Clint noticed that that one of the sex shops had opened early. It was their first time in Paris as a band, and the first time they’d brought Noel out on the road. Despite a night out on the lash Clint was so charged he couldn’t sleep past nine am. When he couldn't stay still another minute he'd rolled on top of Noel, placed his nose about one inch away, and shook him like it was Christmas morning. Noel’s eyes opened sleepily.

“Paris, Paris, Paris,” Clint whispered. Noel smiled. “Paris, Paris, Paris!” Clint said, bouncing with every word. “Come on, let’s go see!” Noel’s grin widened, and he struggled out of bed.

It was a warm Sunday in late fall, and hardly anyone was out on the street. They found an open patisserie and ate croissants at a sidewalk bistro set with tiny cups of espresso. Noel made a face and went back in for a plain tea, so Clint drank them both. By the time they passed the open door on the Rue de Compiègne he was bouncing on the sidewalk, humming under his breath and trying to walk with his arm around Noel’s waist. 

“I’m gonna bring you back to Paris,” Noel said. 

“I’m gonna bring _you_ back, you mean. This is the band’s dime, right?”

Noel stuck out his tongue. “Some day it’ll be mine. Should we go in?”

“Damn right we’re going in. We need to get us some willy shaped pasta,” Clint said, pointing in the window. 

Noel choked. “What in fuck’s name for?”

“Gonna make it for tea when we tell your mam you’re knocked up. Come on.”

They wandered up and down the aisles for hours, it seemed. Clint tried not to gawp like a twelve year old, but he could tell he was. Noel was even worse, bending over to examine packages with photos of women wearing enormous strap on dildos, or calling Clint over to show him a bong shaped like a two foot tall penis. There were rows and rows of videos, and some shady looking booths that Clint stayed well away from, and a door to what looked like a club in the back, silent and dark so early. At last they stood in front of a row of shining dark leather straps.

“Fucking hell,” said Noel, taking one down. It was as long as his arm, with a braided grip at the handle and the business end split in two long tails. He held it out to Clint. 

“Jesus,” Clint murmured. It was half as thick as his finger, with blunt rolled edges, and it had a good smell. “What do you do with it?”

“Well, I could giving a fucking guess, but I don’t know. Is it supposed to be sexy?”

“I could imagine it being sexy,” Clint said, fingering the split.

“Would you like a demonstration?”

They both whirled around. The shop girl stood at the end of the aisle, watching them. She was as tall as Clint, with heavy black eye makeup and blood red lips despite the early hour. Her hair was drawn severely back and she was wearing some sort of...well, it was a corset, Clint decided. Her aspect was fairly frightening, but she spoke as blandly as if offering to demonstrate the use of a blender instead of a sex toy. 

“Em, here?” Noel said, looking around.

“There is room in the back,” she said. “The club is empty until one today.”

They exchanged glances. “Yeah,” Clint said.

She led them through a dark passage to a room like a womb. She flipped on a single light, revealing a low stage with a pole at the center. Her heels clicked across the concrete floor, then echoed hollowly as she mounted the stage. She turned and waited for them. Clint squeezed Noel’s hand as they crossed the dark floor. It was exciting, and scary, and dirty all at once. He was glad they were together.

“Which of you is receiving?” the shop girl asked simply. 

“Me,” Clint said. Noel looked at him. Clint shrugged. He didn’t know why, he just was. He was curious as fuck, and he wanted to see that long thing in Noel’s hand. 

The woman looked him up and down. “So you are,” she said quietly. “I see you. You will like this, I think. And you…” she looked at Noel. “Oh, you are very young. Can you take care of him?”

Noel looked at Clint. “Yes,” he said.

“It’s not easy,” she warned. “You must think of him first. It is not the same after this.”

“I...I know. I will.”

She nodded, and began to study Clint in a more businesslike fashion. “These trousers, they must be all the way up, or all the way off. This halfway down will not work.”

Clint hitched his jeans and tightened the belt. He was curious, but not ready to bare his arse to a stranger by a long sight. 

“The tawse, it is only a tool,” she said seriously. “It is what is between you that is important. What you wait for, what you long for. What you fear and what you desire. And you--” she turned to Noel. “He puts himself in your hands, no? And you could injure him very badly when you are careless. You must treat him always as glass.” She looked at Clint appraisingly. “He will tell you what he needs very soon. But in the beginning you must go slowly, and remember nobody knows what he do not know. Now, I will show you...”

She placed Clint’s hands on the pole at about the level of his eyes and stepped behind his shoulder, just out of sight. He was aware of her motioning Noel to join her there, and the sound of her speaking quietly in his ear.

“Take off your shirt,” Noel said. Clint obeyed. He pulled the shirt slowly over his head and, turning so he could look Noel in the eye, let it fall the floor. Then he returned his hands to the pole. 

She stepped forward and touched Clint’s body gently, speaking to Noel all the while. “All this you may strike as hard as you like. This soft part of the back where is the kidney, you must never touch, nor the sides, nor inside the delicate joints. Here on the shoulders, you may go cautiously.” She paused. “His skin is very beautiful. You may find you can color him like a painting. But always, you must listen to him. And after, he will need you to be very tender.” She whispered something else in his ear. Noel began to speak, cleared his throat, and tried again.

“Do y’want to see it again first?” he asked.

“No,” Clint said. He was half-dreaming in the darkness, being spoken about as if he wasn’t there. He could see the leather strap in his mind exactly, the way had dangled from Noel’s hand. 

“Tell me stop, or wait, or--or whatever, okay? It’s...it’s just a test. We don’t have to do it.”

“Go,” said Clint.

It burned. It made Clint gasp with its weight. There was a sound of feet, and Noel came into his line of vision. 

“All right?” he asked. His eyes were huge, his face intent. 

“Yeah, love,” Clint told him. He pulled his jeans up tight and bent forward. This one made sensation bloom all over his body, right down to his fingers and scalp. The very pole under his hands felt hot.

“One more,” Noel said. Clint could hear him draw back, and the grunt just before he swung. Christ. It wasn’t enough. The jeans needed to come off. They needed to get home. Clint needed him right fucking now. He couldn’t think of a word for what he needed.

“Do y’want it on your back?”

“Yeah.”

There was a quiet murmur between Noel and the shop girl. “Now,” Noel said, and brought the strap down.

It stung like bees. It made a solid bar of fire across Clint’s shoulder. It was gorgeous.

There were two more strokes across that shoulder, and three on the opposite side. Clint felt that he could remain there forever, hung in space under the single light, just waiting for Noel to swing.

It stopped. Clint turned to face Noel. He stood with the tawse hanging from one hand limply, staring at Clint, his face thick with arousal. 

“I will go check on the shop,” the woman said, and left them.

Clint stood, wavering on his feet, until Noel closed the gap and kissed him. The pole was a cold column in the center of his back, and he let Noel push him against it without shame. “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” Noel told him, rutting his body against him. Clint took it, letting the smooth metal cool his skin.

“I...,” Clint said.

“You wanna see more Paris?” Noel asked between kisses.

“Fuck Paris,” Clint said, Noels’ tongue deep in his mouth. “Fuck Paris. I want…I want to get out of here.” 

“I’ll get it,” Noel says. “Get your clothes on.”


	13. Hot chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1995

The bar was all dark wood, leather, and mirrors. Noel looked around. He felt more than a little underdressed, partly because of the place itself, but mostly for the man beside him.

Paul Weller stretched one arm across the leather seat and looked at him. He’d brought Noel straight to a table in the very back with only a nod at the door staff, as if he owned the place. It wasn’t even a table, really, just a tiny circular bench just big enough for two people who didn’t mind bumping knees and a little stand for drinks. It looked like the sort of place you’d take a woman, probably with her in a black dress and you with a good jacket on, after you’d taken her to dinner and a show and just before you took her back to your place. Instead Noel sat in his trainers and trackie jacket beside a man in an impeccable shirt, thinking about all the things he wanted to ask.

Weller sat with absolute stillness, as if frozen in a photograph. Noel had never seen anyone so perfect. Every seam of his clothes, every line of his body looked like it had been cut from glass. Only the rise of his chest showed he was real. His hand looked huge, raw and perfectly groomed, resting quietly on his knee. An expensive watch gleamed under the edge of his cuff. There, another sign of life--a slow pulse in the back of his hand. It looked...vital, and old, and strong. Noel realized he was staring. He looked up guiltily, and found a stare that made him shiver.

“Tell me how you write,” Weller said quietly.

Noel knew how to bullshit. Even though he was telling the truth it was bullshitting; he couldn’t help it. He pulled out all of his winningest charm, nodded and shook his hair and gestured with his hands, and all the time Weller fixed him with that animal stare. A waitress came by, a pretty one with corn-colored hair to her waist. Weller ordered hot chocolate and a sidecar of bourbon without a second look at her. What kind of rich cunt orders sugary girls’ drinks, Noel wondered. He himself gave careful thought to what to drink with rich cunts; he’d learned that neither lager nor tequila shots went over with the company he’d begun keeping lately. He ordered a sixteen year Scotch, neat, and kept talking.

Weller moved a little closer. Their knees were well touching now. He leaned in until Noel could feel the perfectly formed bones of his knee, his warm thigh. Noel went wankering on, doing his best to sound deep and clever and at ease. “Because it’s all about the middle eight, right? If you’ve got a hook and a good middle eight, the rest is like falling down.”

“Mm,” Weller said. Their drinks came. Weller’s chocolate was piled three inches high with whipped cream, sprinkled with shavings of fresh chocolate. Noel reckoned he would have shit himself about it when he was a kid. It smelled like heaven. He sipped his scotch and smothered a cough. It was bitter, and tasted like burnt seaweed.

Weller took a sip of chocolate. It left a dot of cream as big as a 10p piece on his nose. 

“Hm?” Noel said, distracted. 

Weller leaned closer. “Your first songs,” he prompted.

“Right, well those were pretty fucking terrible--” Noel said. There was a good deal of heat coming from the curve of Weller’s arm, and the cream on his nose wasn’t going anyplace. There was...there was a sensation on Noel’s back. The slow stroke of a thumb. The animal focus of Weller’s gaze tightened.

The scotch in Noel’s hand seemed to be made of solid fumes. You didn’t even have to drink the stuff, just raise it to your face and your head began to swim. Noel let it hang there, threading straight up to his brain, watching. Weller took a long sip of chocolate, burying his face right in it and sucking until Noel could see the muscles working in his throat. He licked his lip as he came away. He looked at Noel and poured his bourbon into the chocolate. The cream on his nose was giant now, surely there was no way he didn’t know it was there, yet he stared at Noel with utter seriousness.

“I’ll tell you the problem I see, Noel,” he said. Somehow he moved even closer, and his thumb ran a long line down Noel’s back. “I can see that you’re trying to please me. Which...I like. But this is you, right? Your life, your music.” His voice dropped, and he leaned to speak in Noel’s ear. “You’ve got to please yourself. It’s your life’s work, but it’s got to be fun.” He tipped his head, exposing his beautiful neck, and for the first time he smiled.

He knew, Noel saw now. He was laughing, and he brought his face closer. The hand on Noel’s back slipped its palm flat, drawing him in. “You’re not going to please anyone,” Weller whispered, “If you don’t dare to please yourself.”

Noel’s mouth closed over the end of his perfect nose. Sweet cream, and the taste of unfamiliar skin. Weller rolled his face under Noel’s mouth, sighing. He tasted like sex and ambition.

There was someone beside them. The girl, waiting uncertainly to ask if they wanted more drinks. Noel held up two fingers.

“Would you please fuck off,” he said politely, and returned his attention to the man beside him.


	14. You First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has nothing to do with Christmas. 2005

Noel was getting impatient. Liam smiled.

Never liked to be the first to take his clothes off, did Noel. Never wanted to be the first to do any dirty touching. It was cute in a way, polite even. Even now, years after they’d decided to fuck it and go, long after so many accidental, panicky-desperate fucks that they couldn't even pretend it was an accident anymore, he still liked to hold back. Didn’t like to think he was the one making it happen.

Liam was greedy and usually he didn’t even notice that he was always the first one to say fuck off to the zippers. Sometimes, though, it made him feel like he was the only one who wanted it. And that wasn’t very nice. Tonight he just wanted… well, that sound right there was a good start on what he wanted.

He lay on his back, one knee pushed up in Noel’s direction, but otherwise just letting Noel kiss him. Noel needed teasing, that was the thing, which was fucking hard. So Liam just pretended his hands didn’t work, letting it hang loose across his belly, and focused on the kissing.

He leaned up to let Noel have his mouth again. Open, soft as a girl, beckoning. Oh, that wasn’t so hard. Noel made a deep noise and touched his face, kissed him until the breath huffed out between them. Liam liked that. He thought about just pushing Noel over on his back and getting on with it, but decided to wait. Instead he pulled back a little and licked his mouth. Noel _moaned_. Damn.

After a time Noel’s hand began to move. It went to his belt buckle, hung there undecided, moved away. Liam lifted his mouth again, and Noel got up on one elbow to lean over him. Christ, Liam could do with more of that. He squirmed and gasped, but didn’t touch. Oo, that worked. Noel kissed him steadily, and his hand wandered to his zipper again.

Liam moaned a little, and stroked his own belly. Just a little bit, not a lot. Just a little thumb up under the bottom of the t-shirt, not going far. Noel’s hand joined his there. It fingered the edge of Liam’s shirt, fuck. Listen to his breathing, though. It had got all ragged, the way it did when he was about to do that long slow silent come thing. He wasn’t about to come, right? Well. Liam set about kissing him as if he could make him come from his mouth.

That was hot as fuck, that was. Noel twisted one hand in his hair and pinned him there, rubbed his chest against Liam’s body. Fuck, he was so into it. 

Liam began to get a bit messy himself, began to kiss as if he could make _himself_ come on Noel’s mouth. Maybe he could, anyway. It was so fucking good. Noel’s lean body hovering over him, and the way his brows drew together in concentration, and the way he’d totally given over his mouth. Liam drew in Noel’s lip and ran his tongue over it, smooth and firm.

Fuck, there it was. Noel pressed Liam's hand to his cock. Held it flat and rubbed himself against it, fucking shameless. _Come on,_ Liam gasped. Then Noel’s hand were moving hurriedly, getting rid of the buckle and all that tack, getting so there was nothing between them anymore, just the way it ought.


	15. Formal Wear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1997

“Not that one,” Liam said, “Makes you look like that fella in the movies.”

“What fella is that?” Noel said patiently.

“Little fella in the baggy suit, always falling off trains and that?”

“Buster Keaton, you mean? I don’t look like Buster Keaton.” Noel looked down at his suit. It was perfectly presentable.

“Yeah, you do. Put that hat on ‘im, mister, and tell him he don’t look like Buster Keaton.” The tailor glanced up from pinning Noel’s cuffs, guiltily.

“Fine,” Noel said, and went back into the dressing room. “Bring me one of the fitted ones. _Navy,_ mind you. None of that slutty pinstripe stuff.”

“I want the slutty pinstripes,” Liam called.

A few minutes later they stood looking at each other in front of three long mirrors. They stared, silently, and the tailor waited. “You can’t go out like that,” Noel said.

Liam looked down, then in the mirror. “Why not?”

“Because you look--” Noel stopped and lowered his voice. “Because you look like a St Tropez pimp, is why.” Liam grinned.

The suit was made of superfine wool, in a pure dark navy with lighter blue stripes. The trousers fit him like butter, clearly revealing his long thighs. The jacket fit snugly across his shoulders, pulling open at the neck. He wore it without a shirt, and an ocean of chest lay exposed underneath. A gold chain glinted at the base of his neck. Noel wrenched his eyes from it. “Would you just excuse us?” he said, and dragged Liam back to his dressing room.

“No, you can _not_ ,” he said furiously. “Because one, you’re going to have the hands of every groupie in town down the front of your top, and two, I don’t like it.”

“Don’t you though,” Liam said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Uh huh. But it’s okay for you to go out looking like this, I guess?” Liam turned him to face the mirror and moved behind. “Look at yerself.” 

Noel looked. The navy suit was...well, it was startling. The thin fabric had a fain sheen to it. The fronts pulled across his hips the smallest bit, suggesting the shape of his body underneath. The tailored jacket made him look broader somehow, and squarer, despite being so closely molded to his body. And the color...it looked bloody fantastic.

Liam’s mouth came down on his neck. Noel squirmed. He didn’t like neck kisses. They were too...too much. “Stop it.”

“Mhm,” Liam said, and stepped closer to Noel’s back. He was warm, and his round thighs pressed against the back of Noel’s body almost as if they were bare. One hand came around Noel’s front and found its way into his jacket, and the other closed on his hip. “Stop what.”

“That,” Noel said weakly, as Liam palmed the front of his trousers. His head tipped back, embarrassingly, and his hands moved back to push Liam away. Liam just snugged him closer, and Noel’s hands remained dumbly on Liam’s sides.

“You reckon that’s easy for me?” Liam said in his ear. “This?” His hand slid right down Noel’s front. “And this?” Liam touched his silver tie, and his mouth worked into Noel’s white collar. “You’re a walking invitation, you are.”

Noel sighed and allowed himself to relax into his brother's hands. It was half the purest comfort and half arousal, as it always was. A feeling of utter rightness, almost restoration. Noel stirred. Liam’s hand had found its way past the belt and button, past the band of his underwear to ease his cock upright. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Liam breathed in his ear.

“You’re mad,” Noel said, and gave himself up.


	16. Bundling Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minneapolis, 1989

Chicago was in a warm spell, everyone said, with a massive fog covering everything and the streets filled with slush. Privately Clint thought Chicago’s warm spell was still too bloody cold. They’d driven overnight to Minneapolis and stumbled into the hotel without noticing their surroundings. Now they sat blinking in the brilliant sunlight of the hotel lobby. 

It was gorgeous out, still and sunny like you never saw at home. Clint and Noel sat blinking at each other, blushing mildly. It had been a solid week of shows, promo appearances, and hard drinking with radio DJs, and Clint felt like they’d hardly seen each other.

“Do you wanna fuck off on our own today?” Clint asked.

“Yeah,” Noel said simply, and Clint went to ask the desk lady to call a cab.

“Little chilly out there, doncha know” she said, observing his jacket and trainers. Her accent was funny, as if she inserted three fat round ‘o’s in place of every one. She looked like she belonged on the label for a tub of butter, or maybe golden syrup.

“Yeah?” Clint said. “It looks really nice.” She nodded and said nothing.

When they ducked out to meet the waiting cab the cold hit them like two tons of bricks. “Holy _shit._ ” Clint gasped. It was like being thrust in cold water. His trainers squeaked on the snow like glass. Noel grabbed the door handle, swore and let go, then tried again. It was frozen shut. He turned to Clint in disbelief. His nose and ears had already turned red. Clint pulled down his cuffs to get a good grip on it, but it was no use; the thing was iced over on the inside. Clint tapped on the glass, and with the cab guy pushing from the inside it popped open. They dropped into the cab in a sweary, gasping heap.

“Bit chilly out there,” the cab guy said calmly.

“Bloody Christ, I guess so. Is that normal around here?”

“Oh yah. You betcha. Beautiful day out there, and it’s gonna warm up later too.” Clint and Noel exchanged looks.

“What is it right now, do y’think?” Noel asked. The man pointed down the street to a bank where the orange lights blinked, -25 F. “What is that in regular degrees?” he asked Clint quietly.

“I don’t even know. Minus thirty, maybe? Bloody cold.”

“Where’re ya goin’ today?” the cab man asked.

“I was going to say the Mall of America, but now I think we need warm things before we do anything else. Is there someplace we can get winter gear cheap?”

He took them to a blank looking concrete block in the middle of hundreds of similar concrete blocks. It didn’t even look like a shop, but he assured them it was just what they were looking for. “Can we get a bus from here?” Clint asked.

“Nope,” the man said serenely. “It’s just a coupla miles down that way to the next stop, though.”

“Uh, I guess you’d better wait, then,” Clint said. The cab guy nodded and picked up his paper, and Clint and Noel dove out into the cold.

Inside they found the most amazing array of surplus military gear and strange crap. There were shelves of model cars, standing bins packed with actual swords, rows of coveralls, jackets, and caps all in the same eye-melting shade of orange, and cases upon cases of guns. “Fuck me,” Noel said. He motioned Clint over to a glass case. It was filled with the most unlikely knives Clint had ever seen. Things with massive saw teeth and turned-up points, or gleaming blades like a vicious, foot-long finger, or blunt-nosed ones as wide as his hand. There were fucking machetes, for God’s sake.

“What in hell is wrong with these people?” Clint murmured. They looked at the mild-faced man at the counter, seemingly identical to the one they’d left in the cab.

“You fellas looking for anything in particular?” he asked when he saw them looking. 

“Yeah, we need some coats and things?”

The man smiled when he heard Noel’s accent. “Oh, you betcha. Over in the back there, we got ever thing you need.”

There were acres of coats, all in just a few sizes, a wall of boots stacked high above their heads, and wood-chip bins of socks and caps. They set about digging for the warmest ones. 

They spent ages picking out clothes for each other and ended up looking like Eskimos. “Wait, wait, you’re missing one thing,” Clint laughed. He worked a knit cap onto Noel’s head, pulled his hood up over the top, and stood back to look. The navy colored parka came down to Noel’s knees, and the boots made big rings around his shins. The hood fell almost over his eyes, and the fur edging stirred faintly when he breathed. “You look about five years old,” Clint said.

“You don’t,” Noel said, looking him up and down. “You look...sexy. Like a Siberian prison guard.”

Clint looked down. He’d gotten an identical coat in drab green and gloves lined with sheepskin. There were no mirrors anywhere, and he felt ridiculous. Noel continued to look at him. The cap covered his eyebrows. The close wrapping of his gear and the moving fur edges made his face look harsher and more beautiful than ever. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Noel said. Clint looked over his shoulder. Surely the fat man couldn’t see them from here. He stepped close. “You look fucking adorable,” he whispered, and kissed him. Their hoods fell together, making a dark and humid tent. They’d been too knackered to touch each other for days, and Clint regretted it in a rush. He moved closer and rubbed his mouth against a rough spot where Noel had missed shaving. 

“Nmgh,” Noel said, in the voice that meant he was about to melt for him. Clint kissed him deeper and put a hand on his hip--or tried. His hand squished against layers of puffy insulation. It was like trying to feel up a teddy bear. He burst out laughing. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and gave him one last kiss.

The fat man’s face had quite changed when they got up to the front. “You find everything you need back there,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Clint looked around. It was half a mile to the back of the store, and he was quite sure the man hadn’t left his post by the door. It was only then that he caught sight of the convex mirrors posted at intervals along the ceiling. Fuck.

“We certainly did. This is fantastic,” he said politely. “Quite a place you’ve got here.” They pulled off all their tags and put them on the counter. Underneath the glass top, the case was filled with handguns. Clint swallowed.

“This is a fucking lot of money,” Noel said to him as the numbers climbed. 

“It’s a band expense,” Clint said automatically. “We can’t play a gig with no fingers. I’ll call Graham and let him know he needs to get stuff before anyone goes out. I had no idea it was going to be this fucking cold.”

The man looked at him doubtfully. “We got some Munsingwear left in the back there, if you want it.”

“You’ve got what?”

“Long johns,” the man said. “Long underwear,” he tried again at Clint’s blank look.

“Oh. Yes, please.” 

At last they were kitted out for the North Pole, the band several hundred dollars poorer and their ordinary clothes stuffed in a canvas knapsack. “I feel like we should go hunt a seal,” Clint said, standing out on the concrete steps and looking at the Minneapolis skyline a mile or two away.

“I feel like I’ve got a sheep wrapped around me balls,” Noel said.

“That too," Clint laughed. "You know what, I don’t even feel like seeing the biggest mall in the world. We’ve got all this stuff, we should use it.” They went down and got in the cab, where the heater and the country music were on full blast, and told the cab man to take them downtown.


	17. kid fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2002

Anaís shakes out her dressups and tells Gene to hold still. She settles a hoop of shimmery blue over his head and tells him he’s the other Mary.

“Dosep,” he says stoutly.

“You tant be Josep, you haveta be Mary, tos I’m a angel,” she tells him. He obediently lifts his arms so she can wrap a silk sheet around his belly.

“Did we play like that when we were small?” Liam asks his mother. He and Noel are leaned back next to each other on the sofa, replete. They watch their children play with utter bemusement, as if they are visitants from another planet. Peggy sits in the chair that is hers at Noel’s house, one that he picked for its wide flat arms to accommodate small bottoms at storytime, with her crochet basket beside her. 

“Oh, aye,” she says. “Mind, we didn’t have your silks and gowns and that, but Noely was a great one for playing pretend.” She looks round the room calmly. She’s got two handsome sons attending her leisure, pretty grandchildren playing, and decent daughters in-law preparing dessert in the kitchen as they ought. She looks like a woman at the pinnacle of contentment. “You used to always have some game about, do you remember? Cowboys it was, or spies, or explorers.”

“Cowboys were my favorite,” Noel says reminiscently. “I’d make Paul be the cattle thief and tie him up.”

“What about me, what did I do?” Liam asks.

“You were the cows.”

Peggy chuckles. “You did whatever Noel told you. You never started any such thing on your own, though, did you. If ever he was gone you couldn’t think of a thing to do except make trouble.”

“Yes, I did,” Liam says, offended.

“No, you didn’t,” Noel says. “That’s why you were always bored off your nut when I got home from school.” Anaís and Gene are arguing over a silver crown. Anaís thinks the angel should have a halo, but Gene thinks the queen of heaven ought to have it. 

“Love, you have two crowns,” Noel reminds her. “We got a second one for this very reason, just go get it out of the box.” Anaís and Gene both dive for the dress-up chest.

“What do y’mean, I didn’t play on me own,” Liam demands. “I played.”

“You made trouble,” his mother corrects. “You’d smash all the eggs in the house to make me a cake, or pour out all the shampoo down the drain to use it as a squirt bottle. But to play an imaginary game like these are? You needed Noely to tell you what to do.”

The toddlers are exchanging holy kisses now; the angel delicately presses a perfect peck to Mary’s forehead. Mary licks his lips, grabs the angel by the ears and manhandles a considerably redder, wetter kiss onto its blessed cheeks. The angel falls into Mary’s lap, and the pair of them slowly topple into a silky heap. Noel and Liam both smile and do nothing, leaving the toddlers to sort out their mess.

“Was I always in charge then?” Noel asks curiously.

“Aye, the idea was always yours,” their mother says. “Even before Liam you used to entertain yourself for hours with people made from spools of thread, or cities built from your da’s records.”

“Christ. I remember that,” Noel says. “He came home once.” There is a moment of silence.

“I shouldn’t have let you touch them, for what you got when he found you at it,” Peggy says. 

Noel waves his hand. “It doesn’t matter now. But... I remember that record jacket he took out of my hand. The Best of Buck Owens, with that red and white guitar. Christ. I’ll remember that to the end of my days.”

Liam taps his shoulder and points to the kids. Gene has ended up on top of the pile of silks and toddlers, and is covering Anaís’ face with kisses. As they watch, he pins her face between his hands and sticks his tongue straight in her mouth.

“Whoa!” Both dads leap into action. Noel reaches them first, scoops Gene off the top and dumps him into Liam’s arms. He sets Anais on her feet and dusts her gown with shaking hands, muttering furiously. Liam holds Gene tightly, bouncing him on his hip as though Gene is the frightened one, his eyes huge and fastened on Noel.

“Your _son_ ,” Noel begins. He looks like his brain is about to pop right out of his head.

“Dinna pay it any mind,” Peggy says. She hasn’t moved an inch in her chair. “Don’t scare him into thinking he’s done something naughty.”

“He has done something naughty,” Noel says. “He’s done something _very_ naughty--”

“Aye, but if you frighten him ye’ll just make it more interestin’” his mother says. “Were you any less interested in your da’s records after he whipped you for touching them?”

“Well. No.”

“No.” Peggy eyes him over her crochet. “You just began to sneak it, didn’t you.”

Noel looks at Liam, and for a moment he is a man, not a father. His face clouds with doubt and guilt. A blink crosses Liam’s face, and Noel immediately hardens. “That kid is a freak,” he says, pointing. The fat baby in Liam’s arms is already squirming to get down. His father's arms have unbecomingly pinned his dress, and his red cheeks get redder as he struggles to free it.

“You did the same when you were babies,” their mother says tranquilly. “It’s normal enough. Treat it like nothing and it will pass.” They both stare at her. “Liam did that to you more times than I can count. Don’t you remember?”

The brothers turn to each other, silent with wonder and horror. “How about some trampoline time then,” Liam says hoarsely. Noel tears his eyes from his brother and looks at Anaís. She’s desposing her hair over her gown and reordering her crown, completely unperturbed. He looks back at Liam. The air between them is brittle, hot, and fearful. Noel’s mouth hangs open, as if he hopes words will fly into it from the outside. He picks up Anaís and stands, settles her on his hip. “Go on and show us the way,” he tells her at last. Anaís points like a tiny dictator, and he follows her finger to go out. He throws one last look over his shoulder, angry and guilty and haunted. Liam raises his hands helplessly.

The living room is left quiet. The television plays soap operas on silent. From the kitchen comes the quiet chatter of the women and the clank of dishes. Peggy turns up the television and pulls another length of yarn from her basket, undisturbed.


	18. Bundling Up part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noel and Clint in Minneapolis, December 1989.

The cab stopped in front of a fire department barricade. The street was closed off with cars and emergency vehicles, and groups of policemen stood on the sidewalk.

“Geez,” the cab man said serenely. “Geez Louise, would you look at that.” Noel snorted in laughter. Clint elbowed him. These people were too nice to be believed, really.

“Yeah,” he told the driver feelingly. “Is everything ok?”

“Oh yah. Probably just a kid pulling the fire alarm.” The driver sat motionless, calmly watching emergency vehicles go by. Clint looked around. There were numerous turnings on either side of their street, and the downtown shops were clearly visible a few blocks away.

“Em,” Clint began. “Is...Is that the city center down there?”

“Sure is.” 

Clint looked to the turnoff on their right. Like every other midwestern city he’d seen the streets of Minneapolis were laid out in neat grids; he could clearly see one running parallel to theirs just a block away. “Do...do you think it’s going to take some time to clear this up?” he asked.

“Oh yah,” the driver said, craning slowly to look out the window. “You betcha. Looks like a real mess out there.” 

Clint’s eye fell on the cab meter and choked. The number there was roughly the amount he thought they’d spend on the entire North American tour. “I think we’ll just walk from here,” he said suddenly, and nodded in the direction of the meter when Noel looked at him questioningly. Noel burst out laughing and began pushing Clint out of the car. “Wait, you,” Clint told him, “I’ve got to pay him.” 

Clint fumbled in his pockets, or tried; he couldn’t get anywhere with his sheepskin gloves on. His hands began to go numb as soon as he drew them off, and Noel helpfully began digging in his pockets. He ended by throwing a sheaf of bills on the seat and hoping the number was right. The cab man counted it and politely handed back a twenty dollar bill. Noel intercepted it and tucked it in his own breast pocket. “Little shit,” Clint murmured. 

“It’s so clean,” Noel remarked as they made their way around the barricaded block to the clear streets behind. The neighborhood they walked through looked like a movie set of middle America; nothing over forty years old, everything aggressively square. Clint had never seen a city so flat--the land under them spread out like a blanket, and the Mississippi River, he supposed, somewhere off on their right. The people were all squares too, it seemed. Men in brown overcoats, women in sensible snow boots, all with broad blond faces. It was strange.

Down the street Clint caught sight of what he was looking for. “There’s our place,” he said, pointing. A dozen blocks away it clearly showed, neon cinema signs, cheap hotels with rates in the window, bars crowded cheek by jowl. The wind coming up from the river pushed them sideways, bitterly. They’d got out of the car in a bare spot, probably where older buildings had been demolished, and the wind ran across them unrestrained. They ran, laughing in disbelief at the cold, and didn’t slow until they reached the protection of taller buildings and ducked into a diner.

They found it mostly empty. “You know what,” Noel said, as they watched the people and waited for a waitress to arrive. “Did you notice how straight everything is in the States?”

“I was just thinking of that,” Clint said. “Not so much in the East, right, but out here…” He nodded at the workmen on their break eating at the bar. They were almost purposefully unattractive: sitting hunched on their elbows, half shaven, eating like wolves from greasy hands. “It’s like they’re all in drag, but the drag is straight guy. White straight guy,” he amended, looking again.

“Oh yah,” Noel said, in perfect imitation of the fat round o’s of their driver. “You betcha.” Clint looked around to make sure no one overheard and was startled to find a waitress at his elbow. He swiped off the hat that he’d forgotten to remove.

“Oh, you boys have some _good_ windburn,” she said, looking at his face.

“Pardon, what kind of burn?”

“Oh, you’re really not from around here, are you? Windburn, baby. On your face, like this.” She touched the apples of her cheeks. Clint did the same, and found them hot to the touch and raspy, though he felt nothing.

“Windburn,” he said. “Really? Does it hurt?” 

“It will later,” she said, laughing. “You must be the whitest white people I’ve ever seen, that’s why you got it so fast. Delicate.” She put her head on one side and looked at him.

Cherise, her nametag said. She was about his age, he guessed. She might have outweighed him by forty pounds or so, but still. Thick round hips and breasts to match, hair done up in glossy finger curls, dark-pink stain on her lips. “Do you own a raspberry beret, Cherise?” Clint asked suddenly.

Her smile split her face wide open. “I might,” she admitted. “And a red corvette.”

“And sing a mean alto, too, I bet,” he guessed. “Tell me what they do in Minnesota for rugburn.”

“Windburn, baby,” she said. “Well, my mama always used to rub Vaseline on our faces when she sent us out to play. Made us stay out longer, she said, because your face didn’t sting.” 

“Vaseline,” Clint repeated.

“Don’t you have any Vaseline on you, Clinton?” Noel asked. He stared at Clint with an exaggerated version of Cherise’s interest. Clint coughed.

“Uh, no. No I don’t.” He kicked Noel under the table. Noel just made his eyes bigger and bluer, and Clint coughed even worse. He _didn’t_ have any Vaseline in his pocket today and that was a fact, but he sometimes did, and just the thought of pulling out the lube he used with Noel in front of this woman made his stomach squirm in confusion.

“He needs tea,” Noel informed Cherise.

“You bastard,” Clint said when she was gone. “You’re trying to kill me.” Noel just smirked. 

She brought them each hot water in a tiny aluminum pot and a teabag in a shallow cup with china as thick as Clint’s finger. “You wouldn’t even give these to a kid at home,” Noel mused, lifting it.

“I know. Are Americans all clumsy or something?”

“Big,” Noel said. “Big people, they like big things.” He nodded around them. “I look tiny here. Half of these people would hardly fit in a Manchester bus seat.”

“You are tiny, here.” Clint said.

“Would you still like me if I was bigger?” Noel asked curiously.

“Depends. Would you be less concentrated, like an orange when it gets too big, or would you be like an extra-large dose of Noel?”

“Christ. I don’t know.”

“Then I want you small.”

Noel smiled and drank his tea.Clint could see the windburn now, solid spots of red across his cheeks. Clint’s own face burned like it had been stung. When Cherise brought their check, she brought with it a pudding dish with a white lump in it. “Crisco,” she explained. “It’ll do the same thing.

“Crisco?” Noel asked.

“Shortening,” she said. “You cook with it.”

“Oh, like Trex. My mum uses that for scones and things.”

“Scones?” Cherise asked. They looked at each other, perplexed.

Clint looked around. “You’re sure you’re not shitting us,” he said, trying to spot fat workmen waiting to laugh at foreigners rubbing cooking fat on their faces.

“On my grandma’s grave, you’ll be glad you did,” Cherise promised.

He and Noel got their fingers sticky and began to dab it on. Cherise laughed. “That’s not gonna do any good. Gotta put it on thick, like--” she modeled a big dollop. Clint did as she said, but she laughed even more. “Now you got like an egg on your face. You got-- do you mind?”

“Uh, no. Of course.”

She smeared both their faces thickly, first Noel, then Clint. The greasy stuff was nicer than he expected, cool and smooth on his hot skin. Her hands were heavenly. Gentle, firm, and confident. He could melt right into her thumbs as they ran across his cheekbones.

“You must have children, Cherise,” he said quietly, as she smoothed his face. 

“I have three,” she said, after a short pause.

“Lucky kids.”

She finished and wiped her hands on the bar towel at her waist and looked down at him. “Lucky mama,” she told him.

“I wish our show tomorrow wasn’t at a bar,” he said. “You could bring them.” Her eyes were beautiful; dark and wary and proud. She looked away.

“Another time,” she said.

Clint nodded. He understood. “Thank you for this,” he said, pointing at his greasy face. She gave him a wry half-smile and left them. He looked at Noel, feeling shy and almost guilty. 

“I feel like I just watched a movie,” Noel said. Clint heard the question in his voice. 

“The road is full of little heartbreaks,” he said. “You’ll see.” He picked the twenty out of Noel’s pocket and dropped it on the table. “Come on, let’s go.”


	19. Meeting the family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Russell and Noel, January 2008

We'll just swing by my mum's house before the game," Noel says as he gets in the car. "I have things to drop off for her, and we've got an extra hour or so."

"What?!" Russell's hands go still on the steering wheel. He looks out at Noel's glossy neighborhood, at the white fronted house Noel has just left, and turns to him. "You've just left your girlfriend and baby for the first time. We're going away for a night, you and me. To a game in your home town."

"Yeah, it's gonna be brilliant," Noel says with relish.

"And you're taking me out to watch you get drunk."

"Right."

"And then we're going to spend the rest of the night making the hotel neighbors jealous with the sounds of our lawless fucking."

"Right, yes."

"But first you're taking me to meet your mum?"

"Yeah."

Russell stares at the steering wheel. "Right. Okay." He puts the car in gear.

They buy cigarettes, gum, and cokes for the drive just outside of town. "No proper food until we get to the game itself," Russell says. "Then we can binge on hot dogs and chips."

"You're a demon of excess, you are. I'll try to keep up. Don't you ever wish you were still drinking?" 

"Every day."

Noel looks at him curiously. "Why'd you stop, then?"

"Because I wanted to live, mate. I couldn't do both."

Noel shakes his head. "I don't get it."

A certain loneliness crosses Russell's face. "I know you don't. I wish I could," he says restlessly. "I loved drugs, you know? I miss it so much. I miss being high with friends. Being sober on a night out is, like... and I miss that instant, you know, just when the needle--" He breaks off.

"Hey," Noel says gently. "It's okay. It's better this way. I mean, you might not even be here, maybe."

"I know," Russell says, and shoves the car in 5th gear as they move out onto the highway. Noel lifts his hand, kisses the knuckle, and returns it to the gear shift. A shadow of a smile passes over Russell's face, disconsolately.

Coming into town on M56 Noel guides them through the twists and turns to his mother's house. His directions are interspersed with pointing and comments like, "Left at that service station up there. Got my ass kicked by a couple of skinheads in that alley once. Okay, 'bout half a mile down turn at the school. Broke my wrist falling off that wall when I was twelve. See that street, my Aunt Bridie lives up there." 

Russell is all eyes, turning this way and that to see everything, nearly missing their turns. "Mate, this is kind of a shit neighborhood."

"You think it's rough now. You wouldn't have believed it when I was a kid. This whole city looked like it was left bombed after the war. Men out on the street in the daytime, nobody working. Kids out at all hours, nobody knows where the fuck they are."

"Sounds like you had fun though."

"It was brilliant," Noel grins. "You could just be a kid, do y'know what I mean. Everyone you knew was poor, so it wasn't a big deal. You could spend all day building small explosives in somebody's shed and trying to blow up squirrels. Not a care in the world. It was no place to stay as an adult, you knew you'd have to go away. But for a kid, fuckin' fantastic."

They stop in front of a semidetached house exactly like hundreds of others they've passed. The right hand unit's got window boxes with geraniums and an ivy growing on the wall. It looks defiantly prim next to its defeated, grimy neighbor. Russell parks on the street where Noel indicates. "This is where you grew up," he says, observing the monochrome street.

"Well, from about fifteen. There was another house nearby where I was a kid. But this...Well. The first place I wasn't afraid to go to sleep at night." 

Russell turns to him. Noel shakes his head pensively. "Seems like a million years ago."

"Do you like it, coming back here to see how far you've come?"

"No, I fucking hate it. I wish she'd move." Noel goes to get out of the car.

"Wait! What...I mean, what do I say to her??" Russell says in alarm.

"I reckon you'll know when you talk to her," Noel says. "Come on."

Noel taps once on the door and walks in without waiting, calling, "Mam!" There's a tiny lobby and a staircase directly in front of the door. A sky blue macintosh and a pair of wellies stand near the door. A cheap framed picture of a cottage anointed with flowers hangs on the wall opposite the coat rack. Noel pushes through while Russell is still looking and calls, "Mam, I have someone with me."

"Wait, you didn't tell her I was coming?"

A old lady's voice bellows through from the back. "I can't hear ye, Noely. I'll be right in. Stop shouting before you fright the neighbors, aye?"

Noel turns and gestures. "Come on, it's all right."

In the living room they stand and look at the photos on the wall while they wait. There's a massive photograph of Noel and his brother hung over the sofa. It's beautifully done, crystalline in black and white. Noel grabs Liam from behind, both wide-eyed with excitement and smiling madly. Russell looks at Noel questioningly. They don't normally speak of his brother. "We gave that to her for her birthday," is all he says.

There's a limpid step from the kitchen and Peggy comes in, rubbing her hands with a damp cloth. She's got a daub of grime on her face and she goes directly to Noel without noting Russell's existence. Noel laughs as she pulls him down to kiss him on both cheeks, and his arms envelop her nearly to disappearing. "How was the trip," and "How's the garden," they ask at the same time, and laugh. Then Peggy catches sight of Russell and pulls back.

"Well, you could have told me you were bringing somebody," she tells Noel. "I'd have put me curlers in."

"You look beautiful," Noel murmurs. She lifts an eyebrow and turns back to Russell. He stands as if he doesn't dare move as she looks him over. 

"Well, you're just as handsome as you look in the papers. More, even. I always liked a tall man, me," she says at last, and signals him to bend. He gets two kisses and turns red with embarrassment and pride. He takes her hand, which is dwarfed by his, and drops one kiss on her cheek in return. 

"Go on, then," she says, blushing, then shakes herself and drops back to business. "Noely, I've been havin' trouble with me wheelie bin. The wheel's come off, that's why I was just out gettin' covered in smut. Go and put the wheel back on for me, love."

"I don't know how to fix that stuff, mam. I'll just buy you a new wheelie bin."

"I don't need a new wheelie bin, I need the bins out before the rubbish man comes! Crack on, now." She shoos him to the door, and Russell turns to follow. "And you can help me with the tea things, Mister Impressive," she says from behind. Russell's eyes go round. Over his shoulder Noel grins and goes obediently out.

Russell has to duck through every doorway in the house. It's tiny, just a few steps through the living room to a kitchen not much bigger than the span of his arms. It's painted soft blue, with a formica table and a coil-shaped flourescent light overhead. Except for the electric kettle, it looks exactly like it might have thirty years ago. 

"Have you lived here for a long time, Mrs Gallagher?" 

"Nineteen eighty three. Call me Peggy, love, and get the biscuits out of that door there. Yes, this is where we came when we got away from me husband, the boy's father, and here I'll stay."

"Noel says you had a really hard time. I'm glad you got out."

Peggy nods. "An ordinary man who won't curb his selfishness is as bad as any monster. I thought he was going to kill Noel toward the end. I'd have stayed but for that."

"You didn't mind for yourself, you mean?"

"Well I did, of course, but I was brought up to stay. That's what we did in those days. But once he started messing with my boys it was just a matter of time, though it did take a long time. Far too long," she adds.

Russell pauses. "I know all your boys." he says slowly. "They're wonderful."

She nods, taking down a set of pretty china from the cupboard. "The best sons that ever were, all of them. All different, and as much trouble as the day is long when they were young." Her hands on clatter the rosebud teacups. "He's tenderer than he looks," she says suddenly.

"Noel, you mean."

"Aye. He's a man grown and does as he likes. But inside he's as soft as he was at seventeen." Her face is sharp and desperate with worry. She fumbles with the plastic packaging on the biscuits.

He stops her and takes the package. He's leaned against the worktop, shrugged down to be closer to her height.

"I understand you," he says slowly. "Noel is a remarkable man. I--" He stops, catches himself, and tries again. "I know you know who I am. I don't want you to think...I mean, that person you see on TV or hear on the radio, that's not really me, any more than the fella you see in the tabloids is Noel, is it? I...it's a complicated situation. But I-- he's amazing, and I feel very, very lucky to know him. To be here right now. I...I care for him, very much."

Peggy's mouth goes wobbly and she wipes her eye, but before she can speak Noel blows in through the back door. He's pink with exertion and cold, the knees of his trousers are black with grime, and he's got a smudge on his face to match his mother's. "Got it," he announces, and comes to claim a kiss. She gives it heartily to his forehead, and he smiles at the smack of it.

Russell has curled in on himself and watches them motionlessly, as if afraid of disturbing delicate creatures. They look like a pair of birds, fluttering and grooming. She wipes the grime from his cheek, and he laughs and points at hers. She makes a horrified face as she realizes it's there. "You could have told me," she says, with an embarrassed glance at Russell.

"You didn't think I could fix it, did you," Noel says, catching sight of Russell's attention.

"Absolutely I did," Russell says quietly. "Of course I did."

Noel grins, pleased and proud all over again, and peers over his mother's shoulder. "Are there biscuits to go with tea?"


End file.
